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September Blog Index
Walker Percy's essay "The Message in the Bottle" is built around the supposition that a man who is a castaway on an island and has no memory of his past life finds on the shore a series of bottles which contain messages. The man, who has become a useful member of the island community, must decide which messages appear to state empirical facts and which seem to refer to the nature of reality. Dr. Percy sees that the messages can be in some ways like the news of the Christian faith. This fits with his own personal way of dealing with a feeling of alienation by turning to religion. He sees belief in one of the theistic historical religions as a way to redeem man from the catastrophe which has overtaken him. He describes not only himself but also man as a castaway who can recognize his need and have hope that some message might relieve his predicament.
The story of David is the story of the anointed one rather than of the chosen many, but his story, like so many others in the Old Testament, looks toward a time when all God's people are anointed, and not only the few.
Yet one could read the New Testament and get the feeling that it is still about the anointed few. The book of Acts begins with Peter recalling the promise of Joel that all God's people will be priests and prophets, yet how many names do we hear in the book of Acts? We hear mostly of Peter and Paul, Barnabus and Stephen.. prominent leaders in the forefront during a time of transition in the economy of God.
I think this represents a paradox, and I think it is partly conditioned by the transitional time represented. It's a paradox, in that we will always have those among us whose call it is to empower others, to lift them up and push them forward, to stand against clericalism, legalism and authoritarianism, and to remind the people of God who they are. It's conditioned by the transitional New Testament times because whenever the Lord is establishing a new direction for His people, often rooted in cultural upheaval, he will raise up voices to teach and prophesy and to tear down and to build up.
"Welcome to GuiltyExpression.org. Most of us here are Christians, and we use this space to express our frustration and guilt about what we Christians get wrong all the time."
A Theology of Everyday Life
"We dislike the ordinary, the everyday, the routine. We thirst for the exciting, the different, the exhilarating. To put it briefly, we're transcendence junkies. We live in the hope of some kind of excitement fix to give us meaning and vitality in a world of gray walls and Musak. Our heroes are exciting people-athletes, actors, and adventurers-and we are so enthralled by an illusion that they have escaped the ordinary that we never notice Andy Warhol was right. They are only famous for fifteen minutes. Last summer's Olympic champions are now working for a living just like you and me. "
"February 6th, 2012 - Nearly one-fifth of all Americans have not yet been sedated, aroused, tranquilized, cheered up or energized by psychoactive medications, a new study by the National Life-Enhancing Drug Association (NLDA) shows." FUTURE NEWS ARTICLE
In 2012 nearly 18% of Americans are still unsedated. I'm not sure how much longer this can be allowed to go on. Surely the government must realize what a dangerous situation this is.
In the church I believe the numbers are somewhat smaller. I would say less than one in ten churched males remain wild at heart. Most are quite comfortable letting an overeducated, self-important, economically motivated and out-of-touch clerical class tell them who they are, what is the purpose in their existence, what they should or should not really be concerned with, when to sit and when to stand, when to speak and when to listen. Most are quite content to let men take the place of God in their lives.
While we are already well on the road to the future this article describes, thankfully there are also forces of renewal at work.
As I was gathering together the ingredients for a loaf of bread this morning, I was struck again by the lesson of diversity. A pure white loaf is unappealing; a pure whole wheat loaf is too heavy and dry. But mix oatmeal, whole wheat, and white, perhaps add another grain for texture.. and voila! .. great bread.
Bread and wine have something in common. Bread is composed of flour, the crushed fruit of various grains. Until the grain is crushed, you can't use it. Wine is composed of grapes, the most diverse fruit in the world. Until the grapes are crushed, you can't make wine. The beauty and bounty of grapes and grain are not really fulfilled until they are crushed, gathered together, and and reborn for the life of the world.
And the fragrance of fresh bread! The tongue tingling taste of fresh wine! All this is lost to us until the process is complete, the foaming wine flows, the bread comes steaming from the oven.
In just the same way, the life of the church is hidden until it is broken, gathered together, and then poured out for the world. No wonder that the Lord used bread and wine to symbolize his life in us.
Henri Nouwen says that "true solitude, far from being the opposite of community life, is the place where we come to realize that we were together before we came together, and that community life is not a creation of human will but an obedient response to the reality of our being united. Many people who have lived together for years and whose love for one another has been tested more than once know that the decisive experience in their life was not that they were able to hold together, but that they were held together. That, in fact, we are a community not because we like each other or have a common task or project, but because we are called together by God."
I have a few things I want to contribute to the at discussion at Robbymac. The first is an article was written by Jack Hayford, a denominational leader in the USA. The context is interesting.. it appeared in the main Vineyard magazine in 1995 with an introduction by Jack's best friend, John Wimber. The article is about learning to embrace diversity and unity together. If you prefer HTML format go HERE.
The second thing I want to contribute I learned from Jean Vanier. It is the paradoxical nature of freedom, and in particular freedom as we discover it within a particular covenant.
See.. I think our problem is that we tend to think of freedom in the abstract. But it doesn't work that way. Freedom only exists in the concrete realities of life.
The best example is one that Jean Vanier likes to give. In our culture we tend to think of freedom as freedom to do whatever we like. But the biblical definition is this: freedom is freedom to love God and serve Him. We are only truly free when we are slaves.
The way this works in relationships is covenantal. If you really want to be free, make a commitment to someone. When I married my wife, I gave up the freedom to love other women with the same kind of intimacy. But in that commitment I discovered true freedom. And what do you know... now I can enter into a deeper intimacy with other sisters, because they know I am there for them and not for something I want.
Now think about Jesus. God became incarnate into a very peculiar and narrow culture.. first century Palestine. But that narrow culture has now blessed the entire world.
Ergo, perhaps true freedom is flowering in a particular soil, and from that place of rootedness finding the safety and life that can be shared with all others. Perhaps my commitment to the Vineyard becomes a place from which I can truly know myself and then bless otehr groups. Perhaps that is the paradox of covenantal life.
Apart from some kind of covenant, I am not sure I will grow to bless anyone.
Now, someone is going to notice I haven't talked about labels at all ;-)
Yesterday morning as I sat down to spend some time with the Lord I realized what a joy it is to have time and space to spend time quietly in His presence. I also realized that part of the reason I neglect that devotional space is because I find it difficult to give myself permission to rest.
Simply put, as many others before me have discovered, prayer can seem so impractical when there are a thousand things demanding our attention. For me right now, those things are work, continuing renovations on our home, this website and various research and writing projects, and friends and family. Since this is a time of year when we struggle along financially, and since I have some deadlines to meet, it is most easy to simply go from the breakfast table to my office.
Spending time with the Lord often feels like a luxury. It can be challenging to give myself permission to enjoy that privilege.
I have to remind myself that the really important things are relationship, and the most important of those is my relationship with the Lord. I won't know His heart and His mind unless I spend time hanging with Him. I don't want to only know His mind via the word, I want to know His mind by the Spirit.
And furthermore, I need to be in His presence to allow Him to carry me, heal me, and love me. Just as my kids need to spend time with me to hear words of love and affirmation, I need to hear those words from the Lord. If I don't hear those words from Him, the danger is that I will look for them elsewhere, and fall into a performance orientation. That is dangerous both for myself and for others.
Many years ago GK Chesterton shared a startling affirmation when he wrote that,
"Any fool can run around keeping busy and accomplishing great works. It takes a man with something in him to do nothing." We have to be those kind of people if we would walk with the Lord, those who move when He moves and rests when He rests. His invitation to me and to all of us is to find a place of safety and of rest and to live and work from that place of peace.
When I first try to become quiet after a period of extended busyness the first thing I hear is the noise in my own spirit. It's like when a turbulent pool is suddenly stilled.. all the flotsam and jetsam rises to the surface. I find worship music can help me to focus, but sometimes I use a simple but ancient prayer method. I sit and picture myself sitting in the presence of God, and then I pray for each part of myself and of my world..
"Christ around me, Christ within me..
You get the idea...
New download resource added: Chapter 1 of Decoding the Church in PDF format.
Robbymac via Paul Vieira has raised a great question that also comes up between me and my friends. Here is Paul's question and concern:
"You're the guy that got me thinking differently about holding onto these "labels". Why do you hold onto the label of "Vineyardite?" You talk openly about being "vineyard" at heart and in your values. I'm not sure I understand why groups need to pull out a list of values of the kingdom and make a secondary identity out of it. Is it "vineyard" to love to worship and feed the poor, or is it Christian? Is it pentecostal to speak in tongues, or is it just a gift of Grace? By finding identity in being "vineyard", is that any different than what I was doing with the label of "Gen X?"
I want to give this some thought today before offering my usual response... in the hope that something more unusual might come up... Meantime, have a read.
"And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow,
"Oh-oh-oh Montana,
"I love the pounding of hooves,
All these voices are my favorites, and each has been prophetic to me in their own way. Cockburn is a Canadian prophet, and his images come mostly from nature and from the city. Denver was a prophetic voice for the wilderness itself, and most of his images came from that place. Stan Rogers was a prophetic voice for a dying culture in the Maritimes.
What strikes me most about the music that has touched me most deeply is the ordinary images of ordinary life, reaching toward something beyond the ordinary. I realize that what impresses me most is the ability of ordinary people to transcend the conditions of ordinary life, whether with extraordinary courage or extraordinary love or whatever..
It's hitting me again that Jesus chose ordinary people.. not extraordinary saints. The world was transformed by fishermen and carpenters..not kings and politicians and lawyers. There is a divine principle in all this.. and those who are going to transform the world in my generation are not the beautiful people, not the educated and impressive people, and not the powerful and wealthy people. Those who will transform the world around them will be those who have been touched by the love of God and who live from that place.
"A person must come to the place where he knows that the real issue is always an internal one." This is a difficult lesson to learn. The temptation of the natural man is to focus on what is wrong "out there." What in me blocks the work of the Holy Spirit?
If we are to follow visions, we cannot be overly concerned about what the church is not doing. The very word "vision" implies grace.. that which is not seen by ordinary eyes. The following of a vision, therefore, means a willingness to be out alone in a strange land, confident that God keeps company with us there and with the faith that one day another will join us and then another.. and a vision is clothed for all to see.
One of the qualities of leadership is the willingness to fail and to let others fail. Behind this is the conviction that if God does a new thing through us, we must necessarily be trying that which has not been tried before and there will be no way of knowing the outcome in advance. Our security focused world needs people who will let come into existence that which may possibly fail. Our job is not to be successful. Our task is to provide structures in whcih the uniqueness of each of our people can be expressed. Elizabeth O'Connor, Call to Conversion
I enjoyed our gathering on Sunday. This was our first time gathering in a closed space.. but the beauty of the space, and the glass on three walls, made it possible to forget that it was really a building at all. We gathered at the Rotary Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Kelowna.
When I opened my eyes two songs later, my vision was drawn past the worship team, through the glass, to the wide, tree lined walkway beyond. (Sorry, I neglected to bring my digital camera!). The light on the trees, the lively green of the leaves, the wispy clouds hanging in the blue sky above, and the path itself leading beyond the worship team was incredibly invitational. I felt that I was being led beyond the worship team to the Lord Himself. Our small worship team was almost irrelevant.
That was transforming for me. The space we are using has very much a sacred feel to it. The openness is fantastic... the acoustics less so ;-)
The ordinary things have to carry incarnation. The natural has to carry the supernatural. The kingdom is both now and not yet. Todd's message on the life of David.. that it is about ordinary people.. that God invites us into a transforming relationship.. that the kingdom of God is not about the anointed few but the chosen many.. was a good beginning and a foundational message.
It was the fishermen who transformed the world of the first century, after all.. not the educated clerics, not the philosophers or the priests, and not the wealthy and prominent ones. The gospel finds its best home in the simple, the humble, and the ordinary.
"For the oppression of the poor,
The words of the Lord are pure words,
Yesterday Rob commented on Thursdays post..
"I wonder if some Christians who have been walking the walk for many years are more in a place of wanting "co-journeyers", and younger Christians are looking for (and needing) "leaders" in the traditional sense. Maybe the desire for "co-journeyers" is less about the wrongness of leadership models and more about the spiritual maturity of those who are seeking fellow journeymates. Maybe the journeymates are just "growing up" spiritually and have begun to individuate from their spiritual parents -- could it be that it's just a normal healthy sign of spiritual maturation? "
This makes good sense. It also points at the root of the issue that leadership is not about position, and not always about gifting, but about maturity. Have you ever wondered why the NT never uses the word, yet talks a great deal about growth and maturity?
When believers have been walking with the Lord in a disciplined way for a number of years, they naturally begin to express outwardly what the Lord has been building into them. They become givers, flowing rivers, building into the lives of others. When we have had healthy mentoring and a measure of healing, what we often call "leadership" is just a natural expression of love and service toward God to those around us.. both believers and unbelievers.
About ten years ago I wrote an article titled A Holistic Model for Assessment of Spiritual Growth. At the time it was in response to things I was observing and learning, and also grew out of reading James Fowler and Scott Peck.
In retrospect, there are many small things that need further explanation, and I'm not entirely happy with dividing people into four or five categories depending on their place on the road. But if we are going to help people in their growing, and to move from where they are to where they need to be in Jesus, we do need to have some understanding of the place they currently stand. There are markers along the road we all notice as we travel, and remembering those markers in our own lives can help us to help others.
Perhaps one of the things that happens in communities of faith is that we neglect the reality of the journey and the process, and we get stuck in various roles. Those who are mature at the founding of a community assume an office, whether there is a sign on the door or whether it is simply an authority they are given. Those who are less mature and those who lack authority learn dependence. We fix these relationships in cement, in particular where we have a need for control and a high need for safety.
Instead, if we learn to operate in a family model, we will learn to increasingly release and empower those less mature members, until they walk with the same authority as those who once led. Who was once our disciple becomes our colleague and co-laborer. We need this empowerment model. We need flexibility in our roles, and we need mentors unafraid to give away authority. For more thoughts on an empowerment model of family life click Here.
So maybe we don't see the word "leader" in the NT because eventually all should operate in some form of leadership. Every new believer should eventually become an empowered servant of the Gospel, a mature priest. If we label some as leaders, are we more likely to get stuck in our roles as leaders and followers? As we work at creating a new kind of culture, terms like leader may acquire new meaning from a new context. Until that time, I wonder if the word is really helpful?
Rob McAlpine writes:
"It seems lately everybody is talking leadership and how in works/doesn't work in our cultural transition and in the "emerging church"...
"This is what I think is the right question regarding spiritual leadership: "What does it mean to lead a group of people who are supposed to be following someone else (God)?"
I like the way Todd gets us off of our focus on what's wrong with church, and gets us looking creatively at how we will structure/restructure something healthy.
So, whaddaya think?
I really think the word "leadership" is a great word. The problem is, it is too loaded with cultural baggage to be useful right now. In fact, it is worse than not useful.. it is a hindrance to dialogue and moving forward because it does connote the corporate culture of hierarchy and control.
I feel that's unfortunate.. but I also feel that is reality. Moaning about it ain't gonna help us.
One of the negative results from the use of the word is as described above.. immediate separation of the people of God into leaders and followers. Ooh.. that's bad. I think we need to admit that the power of language is simply tremendous in rooting our paradigms and then move ahead to looking for new metaphors and new roots.
That's why I've enjoyed Doug Pagitt's and others thoughts in this area. Guys like Doug have been experimenting with metaphors and not afraid to try some new directions. We all know how powerful metaphors are in appealing to our imagination and helping us to envision new worlds. We need to go to those new places.. there is no going back.. the old manna already smells bad.
Ok.. I haven't said a thing about the subject itself.
One of the comments in response to Rob's post mentioned looking for someone to show us the way forward. But I wonder.. are we really looking for someone to show us the way? Honestly.. there was a time that I thought I was doing that.. and then came a time when I realized that wasn't what I wanted at all.
I don't want anyone to show me the way. I want someone to journey with me as I try to find it. I want someone to share the questions and exploration with. I want to travel forward in community.. but with Jesus as the leader. I want others to support and challenge me in faithfulness to my following Him, even as I support and challenge them.
There will be times in a community when various travellers will "lead..." because they will have the needed insight for the moment. Maybe this is an opportunity to rediscover what the NT really teaches about the Holy Spirit. We have emphasized the personal dimension and neglected the communal. But the Spirit is given to the community as well as the individual, and perhaps the deeper reality is the Spirit in the Body. After all, in Eph 4 it is as the point of connection that Jesus is made known..
When the Okanagan Mountain Park fires were first raging, one of the earliest impressions I had was of the natural cycle of regeneration. I remembered a special I had seen on the American National Parks system in 1989 where the ecologists and forestry specialists recalled that before the days of managed forests, fires were part of a natural cycle. When European settlers arrived, our interests focused on control and management; we were concerned with safety, and with economics.
But like other kinds of interference in natural processes, we were messing with mystery. We were out of our depth, but convinced that we knew best. The natural seven to ten year cycle of small fires ended. The result was a build up of fuel, and old and disease ridden forests. We were profoundly conservative, and ignored the risks of that conservatism.
When fires are allowed to occur naturally and more frequently, the result is renewal and regeneration. Small fires have less fuel to use, and are not as hot. As a result, they tend to stay near the ground and don't make their way to the crown of the tree. Bark has a certain resistance to fire, in particular the thick bark of pine trees. There are usually few branches down low, and so a cooler fire is less likely to make it to the crowns of trees, where it can be fanned by the wind and do the most destruction.
Furthermore, a cooler fire doesn't destroy the ability of the tree to reproduce. And it doesn't harm the soil, killing important bacteria and destroying nutrients.
I wonder.. if the church was less concerned with self-preservation.. if we were less concerned with management and control... if we were concerned with love and transformation and not conservation... would we experience a natural cycle of death and rebirth? Would we remain more in touch with our culture, changing and adapting to changing times? Would we have experienced less destruction when change finally came? Would we have healthier family (community) systems?
Thankfully, God remains sovereign (see also Job 7:14 and following) and the cultural shaking that is occurring is resulting in the death of an old system and the birth of a new and healthier one. We are returning to our roots. We are less concerned with management and control and security, and more concerned with life. But the cost to get here has been immense, and could have been so much less if we had been less afraid of change.
I have had an image in mind as I wrote these words. The image is a painting of a pine tree by a local brother named John Revill. It's hard to convey the impact this picture made on me the first time I saw it. John had stopped by to visit and brought the newly finished picture with him. It was as if I was looking beyond the tree itself to God's idea of the pine tree. I saw the truth of it; it's deep beauty and purpose. The tree seemed to have an inner light. John's ability to work with a variety of media and textures was powerfully evident... the image itself seemed alive.
It calls to mind Psalm 1..
How blessed is the one
* * *
At homegroup the other night there was a time when I was remembering about John Eldridge's book "Wild at Heart." My thoughts were focused on the tame church and the tame cultural God we have created; but I was remembering something deeper... the longing for adventure, the longing to leave safe places behind, the longing for life.
Too many leaders lost that longing as they bought into a system of control and their interests became more focused on their own agendas and self-preservation. Thankfully, in their midst their have always been voices who warned against security consciousness. Their have always been witnesses for the untamed God.
That's important for all of us, but I think it's particularly important for men. We die inside when there is nothing to die for, nothing worth fighting for. Our war in these days is less concrete than it once was.. and our weapons are not swords or rifles.. but the warfare is no less intense.
While cruising home after dropping my daughter at dance class the other night I caught part of "Ideas," an evening production of CBC Radio, where they were talking about black holes. What I had not known is that in theory black holes are mirrored by white holes..
The discussion inevitably came down to questions of origins, but before they went there there was a fascinating discussion of space-time relativity. But stranger still, that evening I randomly picked up "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters" from my bookshelf and opened to the same discussion. I'm still trying to make sense of it all, but it feels like there is a piece missing.
* * *
I was struck the other day after a conversation about leadership that there is a continuum out there. On the one end is the leader centered model where leaders are a privileged class and the only real priests among us. On the other end of the line is perhaps the Quaker model, where all are leaders. While I think our direction is toward the latter, a culture of priests, the only way we will get there is through empowering leadership, leaders who are not protective of position or privilege, but willingly give it away. Building that kind of culture.. a mentoring culture.. is a huge challenge.
In this version of the telling the Grail is brought to the dying king by a fool (as told to Lucas in the middle of central park after sundown, while Perry is flat on his back, buck naked staring at the clouds), not an innocent knight. The king is dying because his destiny was stolen from him.. a spear thrust into his innards.. The movie itself is a modern interpretation of the story, with the fool being Perry, the madman living on the street, while Lucas, the egotistical shock radio host is the dying king, whose meteoric rise to stardom was halted after one of his listeners took a shotgun to a local restaurant and blew away half the patrons. Whichever way you read it, both are healed through friendship, honesty and self-sacrifice.
Now you may have guessed why the movie was speaking to me on so many levels last night. First, it's a story about a Holy fool, who is happy and content with no status in the world, while the rich and ascending radio personality is trying to take his own life.
Second, it's a story about stolen dreams on the one hand, and dreams that are causing death on the other hand. It seems our dreams often become the source of our wounding.. and send us on a quest of our own, looking for something we have lost that can also become the key to our healing. (Another great version of this archetypical theme is found in Robert Bly's "Iron John").
Incidentally, TS Eliot's poem The Wasteland also reflects the Fisher King legend.
This is the anniversary of the attack on the twin towers in New York.
I've had some encouragement recently from Christianity.ca who will be hosting some of my writing. It's nice to be appreciated.
Earth Observatory had some great images of the Kelowna fires from space. With the arrival of rain in the last few days and cooler weather.. after months of heat and drought.. the real danger is finally past. What a strange summer!
Our renovations here continue. I spent most of yesterday painting, then went out to buy baseboards and another bat of insulation. We are finally in the finishing stage, and I will be able to get the rest of my office out of boxes.
I confess I have let my devotional life slip badly over the past month. I've done little reading of any kind, and my prayers have been the conversational kind while hammering nails, cutting wood, or using a caulking gun. I don't think conversational during-the-routine prayers are less valuable, but they are less restful and centered. I now find that slowing down and clearing my mind is difficult, and that means I am less likely to hear from the Lord.
As with any kind of exercise, regular devotions build spiritual muscles. I'm feeling more physically lean than I have been in the past five years, but more spiritually fat. Time for a change.
"God help me always to seek truth; and protect me from the company of those who have found it."
I love a good paradox, and this one speaks to me of being a lifelong learner, a disciple, a follower, a seeker, one who has more questions than answers but knows the One who knows the answers.
Unrelated.. haven't seen it yet but looks like a must...Whale Rider
Soulgardeners is another one making a long trek .. 250 km through rugged terrain. Sigh.. I wish I could have found time to do a good canoe trip this summer. Between moving to a new house and dodging the fires all over Kelowna its been crazy.
And the river runs wide
* * *
The following is an excerpt from "The Eighth Day of Creation" (unpublished)
Later that night, back in his own chambers, Daniel gathered with his three friends. Together they sought the Lord for an answer. When it finally came it was not as Daniel expected.
It was perhaps just past the fifth hour of the morning. They had fasted all of the previous day and all night. But Daniel sensed a release in his spirit in the morning, and that they should have a simple meal. Daniel instructed the servant to bring them bread, wine and fruit.
They sat at the table together, the four of them, in the quiet of the morning. The last stars still shone in the tearing curtain of night, and on the horizon the light was dawning. The servant poured the new wine from a new wineskin into their glasses, and Daniel broke the small loaves and passed them around the table.
It was then it happened, as they crunched into the broken bread and felt the gritty wholeness of it and tasted the death of the wheat even as it gave them life. It started small.. like a strange fragrance on the wind or a shift in the spectrum when the first rays of sunrise touch common objects and they seem to glow with inner beauty. It started with a shimmering in the air and a shift in perception, like the first time you fall in love and your eyes are opened to the beauty of ordinary things.
First the room itself seemed to shrink, and even while Daniel sat grinding the fresh bread in his teeth, and he was aware that he had a seed caught in that familiar place where the seeds always catch between a certain molar and bicuspid, he was aware of something else, something he had never known before, unless it was in a dream many years ago. He felt as if he were looking down on the scene from a great height, and the present was diminishing in reality in the Presence of a greater reality. He felt as if his mind was racing toward heaven while his body was anchored on earth.
And then he was rocketing back to earth, through fields of stars filled with a great wind, but the wind was a song, the harmony was so beautiful he only wanted to stay and dance in the starry fields and forget everything else he had ever known.
Then he was suddenly seated with his friends, and Mishael was telling a joke and Azariah was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his face, and then Hananiah couldn't restrain himself any more and he burst out with a huge laugh and sprayed pieces of bread and spittle, like some absurd baptism over everyone.
Then they all felt giddy, like they had finished the wine but they hadn't, and they felt like they were all in love and like they were in the Presence of a joy that they had never known and could never know in this life save it was suddenly gifted to them by a knowledge that celebrated life and being because it was the very foundation of love and being.
And then suddenly all four were aware of the Presence and the room grew perfectly quiet, except for the pounding heartbeats of four terrified, giddy young men who saw with perfect clarity the fools they all were and the love with which the Most High held them in spite of their foolishness.
As they sat together, forgetting about the bread and the wine and remembering instead who they were and the times they were in, and that their own deaths were only hours away, their eyes were drawn imperceptibly to a small black stone on Daniel's finger.
Mishael looked at the stone, and heard a child's cry, far away in the stillness of a distant morning. Hananiah looked and saw a lone star, hot and glowing white, blazing like a beacon in a deep blue canvas. Azariah looked and heard a cock crow, and saw a single tree outlined against a dark sky. And then the room itself seemed to shrink and enter the stone in a whirling blackness of starlight, and they all sat at a small table breaking bread in the center of the stone, far, far away.
Daniel looked across the table into Misha's eyes (Misha was the affectionate name Daniel had given him; they were all brothers, but Misha was especially dear) and saw terror and joy, and he smiled. Peace covered him like a cloak, and it rolled down off his garments like hot oil. Then Misha looked up from the stone and caught his gaze, and he too relaxed into the peace of the Presence. Then they were all laughing again and drinking the wine.
Finally, as the sunrise began to flood their room, Misha asked, "What time is it? And what do we do now?"
"It is time to meet with the king. But don't worry.. I know his dream."
"What? How?" blurted Hananiah.
"When the Presence of God filled the room… it was then. And now I know."
More on Vision
Some great comments a couple of blogs back on the process and reality of vision and "seeing." How do we know a particular vision is from God? And what process do we use to test, and then implement it? How do we .. and when should we... bring others along?
Too often leaders have correctly grasped a god-given vision then demanded others acknowledge it and help bring it to pass. But we can "begin in the spirit and end in the flesh." Somewhere Jacques Ellul wrote that in the Christian life "the means must contain the ends," there must be integrity to both means and ends, all must be Incarnation.
Often when I think of vision and the visioning process I have thought of an individual process. But I wonder whether we have been too shaped by our culture here.. shouldn't vision be a collective process of listening and discernment? I think, since Jesus is a body, that would be the ideal, even as we acknowledge that there have been blocks to our attaining it.
* * *
Wine and Sex
An older gentleman came to my door this morning with a bucket of grapes. The timing was funny since I had been thinking about wine...
Part of his sales pitch was, "you young people appreciate a good price." Ok, now he had me hooked. At 46 I don't usually think of myself as young!
Then he told me, "It will help your sex life." I hesitated at that point.. after long days of work I've been too tired for that kind of intimacy lately.
With 18,000 varieties of grape in the world, we know the Lord loves diversity. "I tell you truly, I won't drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it with you in my Kingdom."
I don't know why that phrase lept to my head this morning. But I wonder what that wine will be like? I also wonder how much we have lost in our celebration of the supper in using Welch's grape juice and small shot glass sized portions. If this is about celebration, I like the Jewish model better. At every wedding it is the obligation of the Rabbi to empty the bottle. No wonder the Rabbi's are always dancing!
We haven't generally used real wine in our celebration of the Lord's supper, for reasons of sensitivity to some among us who had a history of abuse. But the last time we did use wine, it was a great experience. We took one bottle and poured eight half glasses. There was something about using real wine and savoring the fragrance and flavor together, and the awareness of the symbolism that made that a special occasion.
A free online seminary.. what will they think of next? Disseminary.org
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Yesterday I was thinking about Rob McAlpine's question about vision and whether that category is still important for us. Let's face it.. "vision" has been abused and used to impose value sets and even to herd large groups of people in strange directions. Too many leaders are "vision driven" while neglecting to care for people in the process. Too often "vision" has meant a particular leader's drive toward church growth, relying heavily on well established techniques and with a particular cultural definition of success.
Ok, so is it still important to have a "vision" and a plan to attain it?
I think it is.. but then why does the phrasing of the question bother me?
In the first place, it bothers me because I know some great leaders who have no idea where they are going. Yet it is their blessed example of "not knowing" yet being willing to follow that I find so inspiring.
A few months ago I received an email from a leader in New Zealand who was giving up a successful ministry (meaning lots of people and money) to go to unknown places. He asked me if he was crazy. I told him straight out.. "You are nuts. God bless you for being a Holy fool. You are in good company. I thank God for men like you. I cheer whenever someone is swimming against the tide."
More recently I had a conversation with David Ruis. I asked him what he was up to in California, whether he had discovered why the Lord had clearly sent him there. His answer was simple: "No."
This got me wondering whether there are in fact two kinds of Christians: those who will go without knowing, and those who won't. See, I am convinced that it doesn't take much guts to follow when the direction is clear, and when the potential rewards are obvious. Most of us can move along quite nicely in those situations, because our identity is not threatened. We all like to be perceived as going somewhere, and as being successful.
But takes a lot of guts and some very deep roots in Christ to walk toward the unknown.
There is this odd verse in the servant songs in Isaiah: "He leads the blind in ways they know not."
Is it important to havea vision? I suppose so. But I guess the question bothers me because it leaves out one side the experience of faith. Abraham went out "not knowing where he was going." The average believer is not willing to walk that path, much less the average christian leader.
But I can't help wondering what we would discover if we weren't such security focused people. I can't help wondering what we would discover if we so trusted in the Lord that we were willing to walk in darkness as happily as we walk in the light.
I wonder what kind of people we would be if we were really people of faith? I wonder what would happen if we really learned to embrace mystery?
A few centuries ago there was this great debate between two Christian scholars. Anselm on the one hand was very enamored of knowledge, and he came up with a little dictum to celebrate his position. Anselm said, "I believe in order to understand."
On the other side of the debate was a monk named Bernard who was very enamored of love. His approach to life as his approach to God was meditative. Bernard said, "I believe in order to experience." For Bernard the path to knowledge was love, and love involved personal knowledge. That is a very postmodern position. Only the love of God and personal knowledge of him will make us the kind of people who can trust Him while walking in the darkness as easily as we trust Him in the light.
Every so often one of our friends will have reason to interact with or observe our oldest daughter. The result is that we hear, sooner or later, "you did something right." It's good to hear, not because we are looking for the approval of others, but because it affirms what we already know.. that our nearly sixteen daughter is on a good foundation of growth.
The truth is that we see our own errors more clearly than we see the good things. We could have spent more time, been tougher in this area and softer in that. Maybe I feel this more as a father, because I have had less time to interact with her over the years, and now in her mid teens she is one busy girl, and hard to slow down enough to spend quality time with.
A few days ago Elise wanted to go to the music store to look at new guitars. I assembled and partly rebuilt a broken down old one two years ago, and as she spends time with friends, some of whom are quite gifted musically, she has recognized that the old guitar is inadequate. It no longer matches her skill level, and the action is poor.
It was fun to snoop around, try out some instruments, listen as she played beautifully on an expensive Roland piano, and just interact around an area of her passion. But the best part came later.
In mid afternoon while Elise was making herself a late lunch, I joined her in the kitchen and asked her how it was going with a recent acquaintance of hers who is expressing great interest in things of faith. We had a great conversation about wounding and healing, broken families, some of my personal history, caring for people, intimacy and romance.. we covered a lot of territory in 45 minutes or so. By the time we were halfway into the conversation, I was feeling very privileged to have such a daughter. I was also feeling inwardly very tender, and had to bracket my tears a few times as I observed the flowering of my daughter into a young lady, and just enjoyed talking with her.
As she enters grade eleven this year, and as I realize we may only have a few more years of daily contact, I am thankful for the gift we have been given. God's grace has been evident in our family in many ways, and not the least of those is the children we have been given to shepherd through the first years of their life as they learn to walk with the Lord in a broken world.
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"The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is a part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, and the shores. A man is part of his canoe and therefore part of all it knows. The instant he dips his paddle, he flows as it flows, the canoe yielding to his slightest touch and responsive to his every whim and thought....There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions." Sigurd Olson, 1961
We arrived late and I had some trouble adjusting to the setting, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the Lord and on the words being sung. We were standing at the back of the small gathering of people, most of whom sat on chairs around small tables.
