should i stay or should i go

this one got going on 'northVUs' and it seemed like there might be more to say so i transplanted it here...

"How bout those who reject Jesus, or the church, or faith? It seems to me that as soon as you define the role of something, specifically an institution, then you are necessarily excluding." (hineini)

i agree that those who reject the centre of a faith community- in this case Jesus- will find themselves outside of that faith community... but that is what rejection means, isn't it? the turning from rather than towards something or someone?

does this mean that these individuals fall outside of the love of that community or the love of the God of that community? no, it shouldn't imply this at all. as a matter of fact, it is pretty scriptural that the love of God and his faith community, the Church, is offered inclusively with no expiry date and no umpire keeping track of strikes. if Jesus would implore peter and the boys to forgive seventy-times-seven then i think it would be rather inconsistent for God the Father to say

"well, yeah, that's a rule i made for you. however, with me it's down to your basic three strikes and you're out."

however, some of hineini's comment seems to reflect this understanding or characterization of God. in my view, that god is a construct, created in the image of certain members of fallen humanity who would seek to somehow justify thoughts of condemnation of the people beside them... much like the parable Jesus told in luke 18.9-14 . the reality of who God is is not limited by our sloppy theology. the only thing that is limited by our sloppy theology is our ability to experience a deep relationship with this God person... oh, and the ability to invite others into relationship with God as well, for a relationship based on misconception is going to have some pretty arbitrary limits and some therefore pretty limited appeal.

but back to rejection... it is my belief that when individuals reject that which is being offered (and continues to be offered regardless of their decision to accept or reject it) then they have no place entertaining feelings of embitterment or alienation based on their own decision to reject. they've chosen exclusion of their own design.

remember, i am not talking about somehow barring the doors or shutting the lights out and pretending no one is home when an 'other' (in the biblical sense) comes by. i am simply acknowledging that the burden of one's own redemption lands right back where the burden of damnation began- free will.

TGWU (baggage handlers' union)

some good questions:
1)why is unencumbered good again? (hineini)

wow- well posed. i think that hineini's question above is really strongly related to societyVS' one below:

2) Outlive a painful experience, interesting. Like as in 'forget about it' or 'deal with it'? (societyVS)

both of these questions have been going round and round in my head the last couple days for reasons that have nothing to do with blogging, and the more i think about them, the more i wonder if, in fact, unencumbered is necessarily a good thing. i mean, it probably depends on what we mean by unencumbered.

here's what set me off. last night a mom showed up at our small wednesday night prayer group and shared some desperate pain with everyone there (it was a small meeting compared to some- only about 10 people) concerning her angry young daughter's journey into extreme sports self destructive decision making.

at this gathering was a guy who had been absent from our fellowship for about 8 months. having been admitted to the hospital for day surgery back in july, he had contracted an infection which had brought about excruciating pain that had to be treated eventually with morphine which triggered his cocaine addiction and caused him to basically fall off the edge of the world, spiralling downward for literally months. he was completely unreachable and, at times, even untraceable until the disease finally remitted and he came to at one of the local rescue missions where he now lives, having sold everything he owned for drugs.

so he didn't know this mom or her daughter at all, having been seriously 'out of the loop' per se. he sat quietly listening, drinking in the whole story. when he spoke, however, it wasn't to recount his own experiences or personal regrets, providing glib testimonial to the fact that hope was not completely out of reach because any one can change blah blah blah. he instead shared his duaghter's story which, for all intents and purposes, was very similar to the story just shared.

suddenly the conversation was between two people who knew what they were talking about. the rest of the group bore witness to it all, but listened in silence. the true healing that took place there (obviously in small measure, considering the tragic tales being exchanged) was in the basic sharing of common pain.

unencumbered? hmm. i'm not sure that one completely unencumbered would have been much use at that meeting. it was an enactment of God's mercy and grace that, on this particular evening and in spite of the bad weather and the multiple bus transfers that were needed to be worked through in order for my friend to come to the prayer group, he was there as the one completely empathically understanding set of ears in the room. reminds me a lot of the kind of environment that societyVS describes in some of his earlier comments. the writer of acts concurs, as does the apostle paul in what he extols the baby church to become in 2 cor 1.1-11 (which had been my chosen devotional text for the evening, having no idea what was about to happen.)

so if living unencumbered means somehow glibly denying that this or that abuse happened again and again and no one seemed to be listening, or winking at the moral failure of one in a position of authority, or otherwise just running from reality because it hurts then what's the point? but if, when we speak of living unencumbered, we mean somehow outliving (surviving) truths that would enslave or negatively redefine us- and using the freedom that follows to inform our journey as we walk alongside of others in community and support, then i'm in.

That there- thats not me
I go where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the liffey
Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

In a little while Ill be gone
The moments already passed
Yeah its gone
And Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

(thom yorke, circa 2000)

dysconnected

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.
(philippians 1.9-11- The Message)

i was thinking a lot about the whole phil1 thing the other night before our church board meeting. however, i didn’t want to preach a whole ‘sermon’ on it (a sermon and a board meeting? too much, even for these amazing saints that sit on our board…) so there were some things that i wanted to say but didn’t. it's tough when you know that you only have room for a devotional and yet the message burning within you is bigger than that.

you see, my mentor had asked me a really good question a week earlier and it was still alive in me when i read this passage. the question was a simple one: who are we attracting to this church?

later on that week, with such a question richocheting around in the cavernous hallways of my brain, i was able to separately meet with members of four different households that have just recently begun to call this place and the people who worship here 'home.' what was really neat was how, although completely unsolicited by me, they all volunteered some pieces of the answer to the big question of the day...

in each case these relative newcomers reflected upon how this little church was (my words now) both receiving and accepting; in each case there was a person who had been hurt by the religious establishment and had been prompted by God through another believer to give this whole fellowship road another go...

apparently my answer was right in front of me...
my answer even had faces.
those who are hurting and in need of healing within a loving and accepting environment.

so reading phil1 with all of this life going on was affirming:
love is both our message and our method
love is both our raison d'etre and our modus operendi.
love is the point.

but here's the thing that i didn't have time to share: the love that we share, which originates from the Spirit of the Living God, seems to be best detected by newcomers. they feel, as i mentioned that night, received and accepted. where it can break down in this community, as in any one i imagine, is that once someone is assimilated they are presumed to be connected. this presumption can be dangerous, as people seem to fall through the cracks all the time. i spent a fair bit of energy building into a group of young adults last spring, but over the summer they all drifted elsewhere… we lost their fellowship. God didn’t, but we did.

sometimes in a relational vacuum, people just leave. other times, connectional counterfeits can grow to meet the basic need for connection illegitimately. you know the kind- religious circles are infamous for them: negativity groups, specializing in the establishment and maintenance of malcontent. driving wedges between church people and then continuing to hammer them down over self oriented (as opposed to others oriented) shallow-water issues, these perspective collectives often preach a gospel of criticism and social dissonance... but do so out of basic hurt and disappointment. see, they really sensed that people cared for them once, but hadn't felt it for quite awhile.

back then, everyone had them over for lunch. everyone learned the names and ages of their children. everyone offered them the fellowship that they so desperately longed for. it hooked them because they hadn't expected this- they had heard that churches were clique-y and judgemental. this experience was none of that. but that was for a relatively short time a very long time ago- back when they were 'newcomers.'

i think that there is something important to note here: as we continue to grow and impact the lives of those new to to our fellowships, there is a very real need to be attended to in the basic loving of our regular attenders, lest they become ensnared in the type of negative mindset that becomes ballast for greater and greater works that are trying to get off the ground.

everyone needs to continue to experience the love that initially attracted them. otherwise, embitterment sets in.

embitterment has a distinctive spiritual smell. it is the smell of rotting fruit. it is the smell of good things going to waste simply because no one is doing anything with them. to fail to disciple those who no longer qualify as 'newcomers' is to leave carefully gathered baskets of fruit in the orchard to spoil while racing around to fill more.

paul continues later on in phil3.12-16 with some humble words that i am trying to live. if the mission and the method is love, then i think i need to make every effort to keep it at the front and centre of everything i personally do and say... and, well, some days are better than others:

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you'll see it yet! Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it.

off the record

okay, so here we go again.
it seems if you really want to see the phone lines light up, just bring up either worship music or homosexuality among a group of evangelical pastors... this time the catalyst was a decision to by wal-mart to become corporate members of the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20060821/pl_usnw/national_gay___lesbian_chamber_of_commerce_announces_wal_mart_stores_inc__membership109_xml)
one person made this honest and open statement at the end of an email on a list which invited opinions from many different angles:

"The homosexual community is so suspicious of the Christian community that I am concerned that a boycott would only convince them of our lack of love toward them. But I'd love to hear what other people think about it! These questions always challenge me to rethink my interaction as a Christian with the larger world."

amidst a barrage of, in some cases insightful and in other cases unsightly, comments and opinions on whether or not to boycott wal-mart and the like over their willingness to join said organization, one voice resonnated with the grace of experience, so i wrote the guy to talk more. what i've tried to do is pull some of that ongoing dialogue together here so that it reads a bit like an interview... meet william gardner.

WG: Hi Jolly. Sorry my response took so long. I just got back from a missions trip where we work amongst our own samaritans (ie: acts 1.8) every summer. Then I did a quick family getaway to cottage land. Just got back from that.

JB: hey man. thanks for writing back. i remember hearing of your work from a mutual friend and how it was so obviously Holy Spirit-inspired. love it when God takes on the logistics that would typically hold us back... the same kind of stuff has happened with regard to our missions to sri lanka.

anyway, thank you for your words and, more importantly, i think, the tone of your words. there is so much unlove around- particularly among clergy- that the heart behind a few simple lines here was a cool breeze amidst so much hot air.

WG: Thanks for the kind words. Appreciated!

JB: i have a question, however. context: a guy that had started going to our church asked me to go for lunch about six months ago, so we hooked up at this great little thai place downtown. amidst a whole bunch of other questions and curios, he slipped in a question about my position on gay relationships. didn't think much of it at the time, as the whole lunch felt a bit like an interview- sort of a reverse membership process.

WG: Very cool that you had lunch with him! To me that is the way we are supposed to be. I am going out for a drink with a lesbian who has checked us out on the web and wants to know if she would be welcome at our church.... As she is? Supposed to be going this week. Have another good friend who is a practicing lesbian...errr, actually she is legally married to her partner. She has come a few times to our church and loves the love she feels here.

JB: yeah, well, last sunday he came up at archived me back to our conversation... in particular, the relationship part. then he told me that he is currently in a gay relationship.

WG: Funny how people do that.

JB: right. so, okay, now my rhetoric is being tested. i've blogged a couple times in this direction:

http://e-pistles.blogspot.com/2005/07/others.html
http://northvus.blogspot.com/2006/05/song-for-drella.html

what i am trying to sort out is whether my position held is something that i can maintain publicly amidst possible pressure from those in our church who are spectating... believing in God's grace for themselves without receiving it to overflowing- that others' thirst for it would be quenched through a cup of it given by them in the name of the Lord, ya know?

WG: Yeah, I find people are so low on the giving grace to others scale. Showed in the recent hurly burly online. My goodness- that one guy was attacked by some really stupid comments. I wanted to jump in and call the other guy an asshole. But I have learned... the knives of right wing fundamentalists are very sharp.

JB: i always hold that we are introducing people to Jesus, and that the real work is being done by the Holy Spirit- but what if my friend missed what i was saying when i spoke of sexual purity and how intimate friendships between people of either gender are part of how we share God's love and strength with each other, but that these are not to move to sexual relations... hearing only that "love is love and the pastor said it's okay?"

WG: I think you should not worry about that. That is how we start to want to play the role of something we are not. We are not the Holy Sprit. God is. We are what we are....stumbling, fumbling, bumbling people who ache to dance with God. Indeed we do dance with God. Or rather, God dances with us and lets us stand on His feet as it were. He carries us in this crazy dance. It looks comical, like a little kid standing on his dad's feet does. But what a picture. It makes you smile. It makes you feel warm. Not sappy crap warm. But real warmth. God warmth. That draws people.

Relationship takes time. Trust. In that time and trust, lives are changed. Gently, lovingly, grace-filled-ly.

JB: i remember hearing someone refer to the neighbourhood inwhich your church is situated as being an area with a high gay/lesbian population within its demographic.

WG: Um, we probably have the same percentage that your own neighborhood has. Just some places are a bit safer for people to be honest about who they are.

One of the safest and most honest places I have ever been was a narcotics anonymous meeting with one of my people ( a recovering heroin addict). She wanted me to see her "other church"...her words. She also wanted her other church to see her pastor. They asked me to speak that night, impromptu.

It was awkward as I got up and said: "I am not worthy to speak here because I have listened to all of you speak so stripped down honestly about all kinds of stuff and I feel as though I could slip into some kind of inauthentic bullshit. I do not want to do that in this place. I just want to thank you for letting me be present here tonight. With you. Your stories are precious. Thank you."

That NA meeting was more 'church like' than most churches I have been in over the last 20 years. I was convicted by the reality there. By the presence of God there.

I share that tid bit because, I think a lot of church folks think they are bringing God into a place or situation. That is completely wrong headed. I do not bring God anywhere, He is there ahead of me and asks me to join the wild dance He is already doing in that place.

God is already amongst the Gay people. He just is looking for a few of us to go and be His skin in the situation where He already is.

JB: great story. a nice one to have lived, not simply heard somewhere... i am reminded of one of my favourite bible bits, 1 corinthians 14.24-25, where paul speaks of strangers just showing up 'impromptu' and being so moved by the apparent presence of God at a meeting that they are convicted of the sin in their own life- like what happened for you at the NA gig.

it is important for people to not only feel but actually be loved when they enter God's house- i don't really care who they are because it doesn't seem as though God does.

no- strike that.

i think it is more that God cares deeply about who they are while the people of God often get sidetracked by the sin problems that are so much more evident to the naked eye than the soul being strangled by them is. we fail to see Jesus' blood upon others, finding ourselves ever fixating upon that which our knowledge of good and evil recognizes in others (even if our knowledge of good and evil is skewed by far too much human tradition and history to be objective anyway)... this whole world view being the one thing from which God tried to save us back in the garden anyway.

WG: Yeah. Hey, sorry for blabbering on and on. Thanks for engaging me. I hope you don't mind my being fairly open and honest with you. There are a lot of people in the church world that I would not talk as honestly and real as I just did above. After reading your Warhol blog though, I felt I could be myself with you. Thanks for that.

Blessings and joy be yours!
William.
***

blabbering on and on? no worries from my end... it's what i do best.

but now for some questions with no answers: when, if ever, do we address the whole area of sexuality and fidelity and the like with our gay friends, and how do we do so without coming off all sanctimonious and, as was said above, ready to perform surgery to their current sexual identity with a very sharp right-wing fundamentalist knife?

i keep saying 'they' and 'their' because, within my own sphere i know very few people who are 'out.' there are some natural degrees of social separation that i'm trying to somehow attend to for my part. however, i have had a few frustrating discussions (with one individual in particular) which have brought to articulation some pretty comfortable little prejudiced defaults of others towards clergy. because i am a pastor, i am sometimes relegated by others to as few distinguishable characteristics as your everyday homophobe might for a lesbian... in this view, i am autocratic and judgemental and presumptuously ethnocentric- holding to my own bigotted view of what the scriptures say rather than considering other more open-minded possibilities. i have conceded that this may be true of many in my vocation (thinking of the online skirmish that prompted the conversation with william, for instance) but that one has to be careful not to reverse discriminate...

however, in roll the personal doubts. these brow-beatings have me continually reassessing my own world view, wondering if these relational presumptions are in fact true of me and all that. i don't want them to be. i want to lead everyone who becomes part of our church family in the paths of righteousness, and am eager to discern by God's light, where these paths truly lead and through what terrain.

whatever- tangent. nevermind.

point is, our church is starting to become a place that is investigated every now and then by an openly gay person looking for God... i see this as a blessing because i think it means that God is trusting us with some really spiritually fragile people who have received a lot of heavy disaffirmation in their lives and have somehow heard that our church on the corner is safe.

i want it to continue grow into the identity of a safe place- even for 'others.'
i want the one investigating to sense that this is an environment where we are going after deepening relationships with God and each other and that the Holy Spirit is the one who is doing the convicting.

i guess that i am aware of the 'us and them' scenarios both on and off the record, and am eager to proceed on to the 'we.'

a stranger in court

verily i say unto you...

if exclusion is anti-love then hell is the most exclusive club in town.

it is the nightclub with all the lights and none of the warmth of human conversation- a place where everyone is waiting for someone else more interesting to arrive.

it is being utterly alone in a cold crowd and unable to leave, yet aware of a really great house party just across the street

to what degree does the house of God feel like this to the stranger seeking the taste of hope and the sound of love?
***

you know what i find interesting?
this began as a leftover on another blog- a short metaphor about hell with one little line of question at the end for the institutional church- and turned into something else in the comment box.
(http://northvus.blogspot.com/2006/05/chill.html)

In the end though, the ball falls in both courts...people need to walk into a church and not have an invisible "bar" which all churches are expected to meet. they also need to know that things don't happen overnight. -cinder

okay, this was about hell first, BUT if we are going to see the last line as the point, then let's deal with this idyllic 'stranger' at face value...

the stranger at the end is seeking the taste of hope and the sound of love... one earnestly seeking these things has already come to the net in the 'both courts' analogy and is standing with a hand outstretched, not realizing that we shake hands at the end of a game.

this person is new and doesn't know the rules. this person has come more to hook up with some new people, learn a new game and develop some new aspects of his or her character than to actually win anything. here he or she stands looking and feeling a bit socially awkward, and wondering why the people with whom he or she has come to play are always standing outside the court, poised and ready for a serve instead of coming to the net to greet.

honestly? the fact that the newcomer has even found our little tennis club is a pretty amazing thing, considering all the opposition that has been leveled against him or her from everyone in the spiritual realm who sees even the investigation of a tennis match as a threat.

okay, enough analogizing... i'm getting bogged down and i think i have something to say.

we are sometimes guilty of expecting everyone to know everything about this weird environment called 'church' before they get there. it is very unnatural for people to go to a place in order to investigate an ideology or a theology or a whateverology... especially in canada where we have this fear and mistrust of institutions in general and authority figures in particular. introduce an institution like church with its sovereign authority figure (and all the noisy little subordinate ones like me) into the ongoing life-dialogue of a canadian and then see how ready that canadian is to go to a meeting. as cinder was stating, different people do come bringing with them different experiences which inform everything that happens next, colour everything they perceive and prompt their every action.

so this is where the current rhetoric of the 'go-to church' versus the 'come-to church' links up with our social reality. the church needs to go to the people, not expect the people to come to it. (i think that societyVs has said this once or twice in his social gospel of justice and active love, yeah?) the people of the church need to recognize that if their meetings are the only thing that they do on planet earth then they might be falling a little short of the great commission- no matter how high quality their meetings are.

our church is learning this- she is taking a long time because there were a couple decades under a number of different leaders where the status quo was to just flip the switch on the holy tractor beam and suck the seekers into her midst, but she is indeed learning. she is mobilizing. she is initiating. she is engaging. there is hope for her.

but any canadian who comes in the door has already gotten up, chosen clothes, rearranged sunday breakfast/brunch habits, in some cases battled family before during and after battling traffic lights and the clock which brings them ever closer to the eleventh hour (or whatever- you pick the time), found parking and made their way up the steps and through that door... in the face of, along with everything else, the canadian ethos.

they've already come a long way to meet in the middle.

so to what degree, after all that, does the church feel like "the nightclub with all the lights and none of the warmth of human conversation- a place where everyone is waiting for someone else more interesting to arrive"?

that's the ache i feel. just as societyVs was saying in his comments, i pray that when someone does get here that they will actually want to become part of this fellowship. i pray that, having overcome all of that (not to mention countless other spiritual and psychological missiles launched in the spiritual realm) in order to get to a building marked for the purpose of glorifying God, that the meal at the end of the journey and the laughter and warmth around the table reflect God's love and welcome for that person in every way.

but with all this thought about how to get people to come to the church, i am constantly trying to dream up meaningful ways to leave it.

blue christmas

curious servant said... I always feel a little blue this time of year. I shove it aside and work at being all that is right about Christmas for my children. But I feel a little blue.That is OK.
***

a friend of mine was recently confessing the same 'blueness' around the Christmas season. he has used it to fuel his cynicism, explaining that he sees more sadness amongst the people withwhom he works at this time of year than the rest of the year combined. i guess that, to some degree, i agree with him...

yet the agreement strengthens my faith, not my lack of it. it drives me to seek God's face in this time of well-intentioned emotional static.

in my view, if we place our greatest emotional stock in people and human relationships, then christmas can be pretty heavy. people are so good at letting themselves and everyone else down. family and friendly relationships that are supposed to be so close end up feeling -er- obligatory some years.

any breakdown in relationships seems to bare teeth at christmas because we gauge so many aspects of our life's success upon the expressions of our relationships at this time of year... heck, there are stories of soldiers laying down their guns at wartime to enjoy christmas dinner with the enemy, and we get thinking geez- what's that? i can't even think of what to write in a christmas card for a once-close- now casual- friend.

i won't blame satan. that's too easy. it's our problem. however, it's our problem because we leave our biggest spiritual and social buttons exposed during the christmas season and the minions just work the crowd, pushing them and bolting. we turn around and blame each other for our sense of emptiness, rather than open ourselves to the comfort and joy of God as expressed through others, whether strangers or brothers, who suffer the same calamity.

as we place greater stock in our relationship with almighty God through the expressions of goodwill that characterize people's response to the birth of his son (whether intentionally or simply out of tradition) there is the reminder that, with all of its failings, humankind has not been abandoned. the theology of immanuel: God with us is evidenced by the fact that, amidst all that is wrong, there are still glimmers of what is right in every selfless act.

as long as the glimmer exists, there is immanuel- there is hope.

built for relation, not simply recognition

Icarus created a really interesting post (http://icarusgoodman.blogspot.com/2005/10/got-church.html ) about how church, although in his view flawed foundationally, still provides something legitimately in an area where the rest of our culture falls short: meaningful connectedness- totally worth reading and thinking about. he made a couple of assertions, however, that i did feel prompted to respond to. once again, the basic intellectual physics of one person's wheels turning acts as a magnetic catalyst for those of another.
***

"It's the sitting in church that provides the real lessons though..."

although this is a nice little idea, it is a bit skimpy in the whole experiencial faith and relationship realm. i mean, i should probably be a big proponent of the 'sitting in church' notion, being one of the preachers. however, this idea is no more accurate than saying that the real lessons in school come from sitting in class.

(drat! i've just busted myself again because i am also a school-teacher! no matter- i will stand here anyway. moving right along...)

"Half of what the church does has little if anything to do with God. So why do church going folk do it? Why do they attend just to sing some songs or go on a hay ride?"

healthy relationships are the brainchild of almighty God. he created many things which he called 'good' but only one which he referred to as 'very good'... humankind, of course. this was, in my view, because he had been at work creating many someTHINGs in order to eventually have the stage ready for the creation of someONEs. at last, in us, he had someone he could enjoy a relationship with, could fellowship with, could laugh with. we were created with the capacity to not only recognize but to relate- this may be what the whole 'image of God' phrase implies. the ability to enter into relationships within the context of free-will... relationships with both God and other human beings.

it is for this reason (and probably a million others) that people go to church. it is not about the sitting or the standing or the singing or the sobbing...it is in the coming together of people- an agreed-upon connection that bears not only physical and social but spiritual colour- that people draw great strength and direction from at church.

however, i do agree with icarus that, with regard to our other outstanding outposts of community involvement, education and humanitarian engagement, the functional (as opposed to dysfunctional-that's a whole nother blog) gathered fellowship of believers, whether we come together to celebrate the God who created us all in a corporate worship experience, or play hockey together to celebrate good health and fresh air, is a connection that is strengthened by its spiritual foundation.

all things that are truly good have everything to do with the author of that goodness. they are celebrations of who God is as evidenced in all of creation.

postscript: likewise, i suppose, all things that have fallen from being truly good are indicative of how long satan's leash has been allowed to be... for the timebeing.

fired

in response to a thing on another blog, shandi said...
...my sculpture was done in a different technique... coil method of building up from the groundfloor rather than taking away unnecessary clay. So... in essence... I was nothing until built up in stages. But... as you astutely pointed out... I should have been left on my own to solidify my personality before being put to the kiln. And.. yes I did crack.
***

yeah, tragically our churches can become kilnlike, can't they?

i mean, fledgling sculpture subjected to all that heat and intensity? i'm not sure that this is what Jesus had in mind when he said to a few everyday people 'come, follow me.'

shandi's description of the technique used to create that bust is beautiful and, if allowed to also stand as metaphor, is one that shines light into who we are: raw material built around an integral core becomes the realization of that which the scultor envisioned in the first place...

i have, a number of times over the last five years, wondered why God waited so long to remind me of the call to ministry that i heard when i was seventeen. i mean, sure, i got it all wrong the first time around, thinking that i was supposed to be a rockstar for Jesus or something... but why did he choose to wait until i was, like, thirty-five or whatever before suggesting we try this one again?

my eventually agreed-upon answer: because there were still more layers of the raw material that makes a person a person (relationships, experiences, learnings, pain etc) needed to be added before the intended form was realized and ready to be used in the way intended for now.

clearly, i don't have a clue about working in three dimensional mediums like clay and such, but i've got to ask: what happens to said sculpture if you never fire it? is there some way to keep adding more on there?

reason i'm asking is because i don't think i ever want to be fired alive.

i never want to have some sense of complete realization because from there you kinda go 'okay, now what?' small affirmations along the way, acknowledging the artistry of the one at work forming me i think... sure. just nothing that says 'my work here is done.'

i think that being fired may very well be (in this metaphor that naturally goes way beyond my own depth and ability to recognize logical comparisons) death itself. only then can the final form be considered and assessed.

also, once something is fired, the only way to reuse or otherwise rework it is to smash it into fragments, right?

nope- the less smashing for me the better!

now as to why the institutional church seems to be, in many cases, kilnlike? it's probably because people have allowed themselves to be fired, and now desire that for everyone else as soon as possible.

not every church is a kiln... many of them are studios.

nobody knows where you are
how near or how far
shine on, you crazy diamond
pile on many more layers
and i'll be joining you there
shine on, you crazy diamond
and we'll bask in the shadow of yesterdays triumph
and sail on the steel breeze
come on you boy child, you winner and loser,
come on you miner for truth and delusion and shine!
(waters, '75)
***
note: for anyone who's been paying attention and is wondering, it's not that i don't have anything to say about my recent trip to sri lanka, it's that i still have too much to say. eventually i will be able to write about it.

body language

my friend John said...
What does his incarnate face look like as a church struggles with issues? Often it seems that we mistake the appearance of a narrow presentation of worship on Sunday morning for the face of Christ. How malnourished we are!

I think the face of Christ we need to be loyal to in difficult contexts is the body working together with her differences. Often it seems those in power have not moved to be inclusive nor have we moved to be included. Perhaps that is part of the difficulty. The face of Christ is in the mirror and in the face of our brother/sister and we need to be changed to accept the fullness of Christ's face.

which reminded me of something i punched out a couple of years ago. it amazes me how a hyperlink to God can be found in so many of life's encounters... this one started with the liner notes from a fear factory (a heavy, industrial rock band, not to be confused with 'reality' t.v. shows where girls in bikinis try to hold their breath while jumping spiders make webs on their heads) album...
***

he unknowingly enters an abandoned building. it is dark, cold and deserted. there is a ray of light piercing the darkness from a window high above. the light exposes rows of old wooden seats. one row on either side. in the shadows, behind the ray of light, he sees the statue of a man, hanging vertically with his arms spread out from side to side. he has seen this image before, but a very long time ago. almost like a faded memory. he contemplates whether it was a myth or a legend. as he walks up to the figure, he views the coloured glass on the walls, and the paintings of men with glowing orbs around their heads. now standing adjacent to the statue, he extends his arm with a curious hand to touch the tired-looking face of the forgotten man.

walking away from the hanging figure, he glances back for a moment. the dampness in the air appears to be affecting the statue, for the beam of light is now hitting his face, and it seems as though he has been weeping.
(from the liner notes of "Obsolete" by Fear Factory)

the spiritual state of people that need to receive the gospel: lost and spiritually alone, many with only vague and disjunct memories of past religious experiences steeped in ritual and tradition rather than relationship.

these are the people that Christ died for, and christians know truth that can set them free.

worship isn't a designated time or place- it isn't a calculated emotional curve or a mosaic of isolated holy moments. no, although these can all be part of worship, it is a gestalt of all of them for the earnest servant of God... it is a day by day, hour by hour, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat song to God. it begins at the foot of the cross, through the moment of acceptance and straight on 'til morning. it is both active and passive and therefore all consuming. it is the reason that all of creation exists- to reflect back the glory and the love of Almighty God.

worship is saying "you are" to "I Am"

we are to live lives that bring glory to God. all that we do should be worthy of being written down as the work of God. all that we do should be an act of worship. we are his hands and his feet- we are the body of Christ (I Cor 12:27)

it's not the words of Christ that are so confusing, it's the body language.

how can Jesus' people be true to the great commission found in matthew 28 if all they do is live tidy little lives? are the people that are wandering through the abandoned churches of this world going to make a commitment to a lifestyle or a saviour? will anybody be able to make the connection if the christians don't show that there is one? is it working so far?

nietzsche said
"one should not go into churches if one wants to breathe pure air."

although he was writing back in the late 19th century, one can still smell today the musty odour of tainted spirituality that characterized both the church of his day and the temple of Christ's. hypocrisy continues to abound and the forgotten man on the cross continues to weep when it happens. he didn't die so that people could be outwardly righteous and inwardly corrupt. he didn't die so that people could use his name to get what they want from each other. he didn't die so that people could sing "when i get to heaven gonna walk with Jesus" without actually trying to walk with their neighbour first.

the world is looking for a saviour, but first they have to get past the saved...