Procrastination - A Spiritual Issue

Most of us, including me, would label "procrastination" as a time management issue. And it is - but not always. Certainly there are things I put off doing because I just don't have the time to do them. But, for the most part, there are certain things I put off doing because there is some measure of unpleasantness surrounding it. And, if I am truly honest with myself, I put off doing certain things because of my fear of failure. I have come to understand that a root issue of procrastination is that of fearing failure.

If I feel called to engage in some type of ministry or feel led to initiate some type of endeavor often my first thought is, "Will it succeed?" or "Will I fail and fall flat on my face?" With those thoughts in my head, I tend to back off and not risk. With that in mind, I keep putting off what I need to be about because I don't want to experience the hard stuff of failure. But who has not experience failure in their life. And, does failure ever have the last word? I know that failure is not a deal breaker but somehow the thought of failing can paralyze me and so I procrastinate.

The consequences of procrastination are not so great. If I am leading a team of people or a group of people then they being to lose their confidence in me. If I am pastoring then some significant opportunities might slip away because I didnt act in a timely manner. Even my spiritual growth is stunted because I am not out there living on a growing edge and am choosing to play it safe. what I find to be true, then, is that a significant growing edge in my life is to move beyond procrastination and move toward living life.

This was reinforced to me recently as I was reading a reprint of a Brennan Manning book. His recently re-published book Souvenirs of Solitude has this to say about procrastination:

"Procrastination is perhaps the worst, the most damaging failure of all. We who believe in Jesus, who hope in vindication, who proclaim the love of the heavenly Father waste our time trying to avoid the things taht are most important because we're afraid we are going to fail in them. How much faith, how much hope, how much love does the perpetual procrastinator really have?"

Manning then goes on to offer this spiritual challenge:

"In the final analysis, the real challenge of Christian growth is personal responsibility. The Spirit of Jesus calls out a second time. Are you going to take charge of your life today? Are you going to be responsible for what you do?"

I once read that a good way to define "responsible" is to think of it as two words, "response-able". In other words, we all have the capacity and the ability to respond. The question is, am I simply reacting to life or responding to life? A reactive heart is a procrastinating heart but a responsive heart is an alive heart. I want to be alive. I want to live responsively. That's my growing edge.

God Loves Us In Our Nothingness

"Perhaps one of the things that most undermine the development of our intimate relationship with God is our inability to realize and accept the fact that God does really want an intimate relationship with us, that we are really important to him. He made us for no other reason than to enjoy us and to have us enjoy him. He had an absolute fullness of happiness and he wanted to share it, so he made us. Such absolute gratuity is difficult for us to comprehend. Our whole training and the attitudes that prevail in today's world reinforces the conviction that one has to merit love, that everything we get has to be paid for. Not so with God. Nothingness cannot merit until it is gratuitously given something to serve as a basis of activity and possible merit."

"Centering Prayer" by Basil Pennington

In Celebration of International Peace Day

In celebration of International Peace Day, I offer the following quote from George Fox, founder and visionary of the Quaker movement.

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight any war against any person with outward weapons, neither for the commonwealth of Christ, nor for the commonwealth's of this world."

"Answering the Great Deception" by Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman is one of my absolute favorite writers. This piece by him is a great encouragement to keep the hope and faith even in times of despair and disillusionment. The great deception is that there is no hope. Let us keep the faith!

During these turbulent times we must
remind ourselves repeatedly
that life goes on.
This we are apt to forget.
The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;
the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;
the process of life cushions our processes.
The mass attack of disillusion and despair,
distilled out of the collapse of hope,
has so invaded our thoughts that what we know
to be true and valid
seems unreal and ephemeral.
There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion
without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength
of the clean and the commonplace. Let us not be deceived.
It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces
by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.

Birds still sing;
the stars continue to cast their gentle gleamover the desolation of the battlefields,
and the heart is still inspired by the kind word
and the gracious deed….

To drink in the beauty that is within reach,
to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness,
to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement
of the spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart
and in the workings of the human mind—this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.

"Is My Pain Transmitted or Transformed?" by Richard Rohr

Is your religion helping you to transform your pain? If it does not, it is junk religion. We all have pain—it’s the human situation, we all carry it in a big black bag behind us and it gets heavier as we get older: by betrayals, rejections, disappointments, and wounds that are inflicted along the way.

If we do not find some way to transform our pain, I can tell you with 100% certitude we will transmit it to those around us. We will create tension, negativity, suspicion, and fear wherever we go. Both Jesus and Buddha made it very clear to their followers that “life is suffering.” You cannot avoid it. It is no surprise that the central Christian logo became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. At the end of life, and probably early in life, too, the question is, “What do I do with this disappointment, with this absurdity, with this sadness?” Whoever teaches you how to transform your own suffering into compassion is a true spiritual authority. Whoever teaches you to project your doubt and fear onto Jews, Moslems, your family, heretics, gays, sinners, and foreigners, or even to turn it against yourself (guilt and shame) has no spiritual authority. Yet these very people have often preached from authoritative pulpits.

Church Membership - Substitute Spirituality or Spiritual Transformation?

One of my favorite writers on the spiritual life is Richard Rohr. He writes so well on the contemplative live and it's interaction with our daily living. Here, he has some great thoughts on church membership. I have been giving "church membership" alot of thought lately mainly because I believe it's a system that perpetuates spiritual immaturity when, in reality, it should promote spiritual maturity. Here are some thoughts from Rorh on church membership.

Historically, religion has more often been a belonging system or a belief system,than an actual system of transformation. When belonging and believing is yourprimary concern, you do not really need healing or growth, or even basic spiritualcuriosity. All your homework is done for you and handed to you. If you let thegroup substitute for your own inner life or your own prayer journey, all you need todo is attend. Church for several centuries now has largely been a matter ofattendance at a service, not an observably different lifestyle. Membership requirements predominated, not the “change your life” message that Jesus so clearlypreached.

Membership questions become an endless argument about who is in and who is out, whois right and who is wrong? Who is worthy of our God and who is not? Thisappeals very much to our ego, and its need to feel worthy, to feel superior, to be apart of a group that defines itself by exclusion. The Country Club instinct, youmight say. That is most of religious history. The group’s rightness or superioritybecomes a convenient substitute for knowing anything to be true for oneself. Wheredid Jesus recommend this pattern? It has left Christian countries not appreciablydifferent than other countries, in fact, sometimes worse. The two World Warsemerged within and between Christian countries. We can do so much better.

Pay Attention to Beauty and Goodness...Or Walking Right Past It

The following is a great story used by Rob Bell in a recent sermon. It illustrates perfectly that experience we might have when we are so caught up in other things that we walk right past beauty and goodness - in other words, we are walking right past God. Read on and let truth sink in.

Washington D.C. Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them to work. After 3 minutes a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. After 4 minutes the violinist received his first dollar – a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. After 6 minutes a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him , then looked at his watch and started to walk again. After 10 minutes a three year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly. After 45 minutes the musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour he finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces of ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

We often walk right past the "free concert" we are given everyday in our God-soaked, God-drenched world. More words from Rob Bell to consider:

“Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fact and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?” (Rob Bell)

Autobiography in Five Short Chapter by Portia Nelson

1) I walk down the street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I fall in.I am lost . . . I am hopeless.It isn't my fault.It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I pretend I don't see it.I fall in again.I can't believe I am in the same place.But, it isn't my fault.It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I see it is there.I still fall in . . . it's a habit.My eyes are openI know where I am.It is my fault.I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

The Idolatry of Complete Understanding

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Faith implies risk. I will cast my life on this possibility that God is for me. I do not have any proof except my commitment. I do not have to claim complete understanding - that is idolatry. The faith view of reality is frightening in its openness, and so institutions that are always trying to control reality with dictums and and laws and creeds."
(Verna Dozier, The Dream of God )

For the longest time I understood "having faith" as "never having any doubts." It was almost as if one had to reach a certain level of spirituality before you could qualify as one that "had faith." So, for a long time I pretty much saw myself as one that was "faithless" or without faith - mainly because I tend to have questions and I have my doubts.

But in my spiritual evolution I have some to see - and embrace - the reality that doubt is not the opposite of faith. In fact, I pretty much feel that it takes alot of faith to have doubts! Doubts have been my entry port into a deeper faith. It's not always easy or fun. And, sometimes it can make me downright irritable. But I have tried to be patient with my doubts and my questions because they have often led to deeper growth.

In the above quote, it's challenging - and helpful - to be reminded that complete understanding is akin to idolatry. So, if I don't understand everything there is to be understood, that is okay. To say that I completely understand and "get it" puts me in the position of being in control and that is the seedbed of idolatry. To be "in control" is the goal of all of us but it's not God's way for us. God is not about us being "in control" as being dependent upon God for all we are and well we can be. Only when I am completely dependent upon God and living into that benevolent unknown do I truly know what it means to live in faith - to cast my life on the possibility that God is for me.

"The Gospel in a Pluralist Society" by Leslie Newbigin

"Hopeful action means having something to which one can confidently look forward. It means having a horizon. As I said earlier, apart from what has been done in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we are shut up to only two possibilities. One possible horizon for our action is a vision for the future of the human race, a future in which we shall have no part. The other possible horizon is a personal future for me beyond death. From that future the world in which I now seek to serve God is absent. Its future is not part of my future. The one possibility gives meaning to my participation in the public life of neighborhood, nation, and world at the cost of marginalizing the human person. The other provides meaning for the individual human person at the cost of marginalizing our shared public life. What is made possible through the gospel is a life looking toward a horizon which is different from either of these. That horizon is defined in the words "He shall come again." For a Christian the horizon for all action is this. It is advent rather than future. He is coming to meet us, and whatever we do -- whether it is our most private prayers or our most public political action -- is simply offered to him for whatever place it may have in his blessed kingdom. Here is the clue to meaningful action in a meaningful history: it is the translation into action of the prayer: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven so on earth' "

"Jesus As Our Disequilibrium" by Alan Hirsch

Here is a good read by blogger and author Alan Hirsch. He talks about how Jesus came to disturb the status quo...not bless it.

"Why do we need to constantly reboot back to Jesus? It seems to me that the problem is that his people have a nasty habit of pushing Jesus out of his own community. Of displacing him. Think this is wrong-headed? Well, even in the NT itself we have a scene of Jesus knocking at the door of the church asking to be let in (yes, Rev.3 is not about personal evangelism after all.) Question: What is he doing outside his church when he is meant to be Lord of the church?! It seems that it didn’t take long for the church to remove Jesus from his rightful place in his community.

But why do we do this when all our confessions call him ‘Lord?’ Well I think it is because Jesus is always very difficult to deal with, and religious-minded people really do struggle with his form of ‘religion.’ Actually what Jesus taught cannot properly be called religion at all, in fact Ellul rightly calls it ‘anti-religion’ precisely because it undoes all religion. It effectively dissoves any need for a complex mediating institution with all its priestly/churchly paraphrenalia, and opens up the God-relation to all who will repond direclty to its call. That’s why the religious folk hated him. He de-legitimizes everything they stand for (priesthood and institution) and opens it up to the people. they must take him out.

Here’s what I think: Christianity minus Jesus equalls religion. And this happens in more churches than we are given to believe. We marginalise Jesus all the time and in so many subtle ways. And we do this because dealing directly with Jesus (or God for that matter) is always a disturbing thing to a sin-wracked people who would prefer a stable, more controllable, religion. Like all living systems, churches seek equilibrium. We want to settle down. We want to bolt down the Revelation and make God understandable, accesable, and therefore more controllable–a ‘God-on-tap.’ Sociologists call this ‘the routinization of charisma’ (google that!) and it is written through the structures of all religions including our own.

But Jesus disturbs our equilbrium. He won’t be controlled. He won’t be handled only by priests and professional religionists. He won’t be domesticated. He is Lord! Yes, Jesus is our disequalibrium. And the way back to an authentic Christianity is simply to put Jesus back into the equation. Christianity plus Jesus equals World Transformation."

"Softening Toward Liberation" by Fr. Alfred Delp, SJ

"When a person's heart softens and loses its numbness he actually brings about his own liberation. Like all surrender that is not prompted by creative assent this can be a painful business. But it is restorative and a step toward freedom---the torrent at last finds an outlet to its own ocean. The overcoming of icy isolation, of lack of love and self-sufficiency---that is the task of the Holy Ghost in us."

Happiness

Today's edition of USA Today had an article in it on how to be happy during not-so-good times. It really was an article that raised the issue of how does happiness occur and where does it come from...and is it something we can actually pursue or are people simply predisposed to being happy. One of the points the article made is that wealth can be found in ways other the money. Wealth is not simply defined by our bottom line or our income. Wealth also has to do with our social network, relationships, and fulfilling our sense of purpose in life. If we have that kind of "wealth", we can also experience a sense of happiness.

One of the points in the article is that experiencing simplicity can also be a source of happiness...or planting seeds of happiness. Simplifying our lives causes us to refocus and not put so much emphasis on stuff or things...or what we don't have. Simplicity invites us to think about what is truly important. Along with simplicity the article said that focusing on gratitude and also increase happiness. It told of some folks who keep "gratitude journal" in which they intentionally take a look at their life and write about what they are grateful for. It tends to reframe their life in such a way that they realize they might have more then they thought they did. One person put it this way, "I think what the gratitude journal does is it shows me I actually have some good stuff in my life, I feel at peace. I feel happy because of that."

Happiness is always in intriguing topic for me. I think it's important for people to be happy...and I like experiencing happiness...but it is such a bad thing when you aren't happy? In other words, have we created too much pressure on people to feel as if they should be happy all the time and when they aren't, they feel something is either wrong with them or wrong with their life?

Also, have we made happiness too circumstantial. In other words, too dependent on our circumstances - which can change as quickly as the weather. What happens when we are going through a not-so-good season in our life and happiness is hard to come by? Do we change our disposition? Change our circumstances? Or both?

Maybe, in some ways, we as Americans have been somewhat spoiled...and that has also spoiled our spirituality. We have turned happiness into a religion...even an idol. We have felt that happiness is something we are entitled too...and it has been somewhat easy for us to "be happy" in the last few years when the economy was doing well. Now that the economy has gone flat so has our happiness. The scary thing is considering how much our happiness is tied into ...and dependent upon...what we possess, own, have, and consume. Also, we try to find happiness in other people meeting our needs and fulfilling those empty places in our life. And that always seems to be a dead end street.

What do you think it means to be happy? What makes you happy? What does it mean for spiritual people to be happy? Write me with your ideas at scottwagoner62@yahoo.com or post your comment. I'm interested to know.

The Descending Way

The following was written by Gordon Cosby. Any chance I get to read something by Gordon Cosby I do. For me, he lives and describes what I believe it is to be a Kingdom person within a Kingdom community.

"In the Gospel it is quite obvious that Jesus chose the descending way. He chose it not once but over and over again. At each critical moment he deliberately sought the way downward. Even though he was without sin, Jesus began his public life by joining the ranks of sinners who were being baptized by John in the Jordan. If you were especially gifted, don’t you think you would have said to John, “I’m going to bypass this little arrangement. It’s all right for these other characters but, you know, I’ve got hold of this”? But Jesus said, “I want to join the others in this rite of baptism.” And even though he was full of divine power, he believed that changing stones into bread, seeking popularity, and being counted among the great ones of the earth were temptations. Again and again he opted for what is small and hidden and poor, and declined to wield influence.

In all this it becomes plain to us that God has willed to show love for the world by descending more and more deeply into human frailty. The more conscious Jesus becomes of the mission entrusted to him, the more he realizes that mission will make him poorer and poorer.
God is the descending God. The movement is down, down, down, until it finds the sickest, the most afflicted, the most helpless, the most alienated, the most cut off…. Being with the least is difficult enough, but even more difficult is that other step of becoming the least of the least. Our trouble is that we live in a debilitating dichotomy. We listen to this “weakness” stuff, this “servant” stuff, but we just do not believe that the way to God, the way to fulfillment, is the downward way, the way of descent.

We spend our best thinking and energies on the upward way and are distressed if we slip a bit and are not recognized or appreciated. And if sometimes through God’s help we manage a miracle, we hope the recipient will tell everybody. We do not tell the person not to tell. We want our reputation to be enhanced, we want to be known as the one who can perform miracles in Christ’s name.

We do not say that Jesus lived a great life but ended that life poorly. The crowning event of his life was the death that he died, the poverty, the leastness of those final hours. The death is the glory…. This expression of total poverty—the dying on the cross—was the total descent and thus the height of the glory. This life, when it reaches the depths, as it reached those depths in Jesus, explodes into infinite newness. The only man ever resurrected was the one who hit the bottom and knew total poverty. He was the one who was resurrected, no one else. And so we have a new injection into the life stream of humanity—a totally new enhancement of the common good.
The ascending way never explodes into newness. We hold on to certain names, remember and sometimes envy their accomplishments and write much of our history around those names. We don’t write history about the poor, the real people…. Suppose the only God that exists is the descending God. Suppose the only way to be reconciled to God is to be reconciled with the least, who are at the bottom. If God is going down and we are going up, it is obvious that we are going in different directions. And we will not know him. We will be evading God and missing the whole purpose of our existence."

N. Gordon Cosby is co-founder of The Church of the Saviour and served as its minister for 62 years. This piece is an excerpt from a talk about servant leadership in 1989 that was published in a collection of sermons called By Grace Transformed: Christianity for a New Millennium, available from the Potter’s House.

Life As A Blur - The Spiritual Practice of Noticing

I sometimes peruse the books on my shelves and pull down some personal favorites. I then look through them to see what I underlined. I am an underliner when it comes to reading. When I find something that speaks to me...or corrects me...I underline it. It helps me in some way to retain it. And then when I go back to the book I can pick out what spoke to me.

One of these books is Spotting the Sacred by Bruce Main. Bruce directs an inner city ministry so his words carry some weight as he reflects on the pace of his life and how it affects him spiritually:

"I wonder if you can relate to my dilemma: life has become somewhat of a blur. Not that I am complaining. My life is full - family, friends, a job. But events and happenings seem to occur so rapidly that I have little time to ponder their significance and their meaning for my life. Information comes in torrents, not trickles. It is hard to know what to process, what to digest, and what - if anything - can add spiritual value to my life. I think I am becoming a little numb, especially when bombarded by all the bad news in the media. Am I missing something? If I take the time to scratch beneath the surface of the bad news or to reflect more deeply on the events of my life, will I have an opportunity to discover something more life-giving and spirituall enriching? If I really take the time to notice what is going on around me, will I find opportunities to discover a glimpse of God's presence?"

A little later, Bruce Main adds:

"More often than not in rushing blindly through the appointments, meetings, and encounters with other people, we miss opportunities to see and experience the presence of God in the ordinary aspects of our lives. We become content just skimming through life without ever pausing to consider that the events of our daily lives may have deeper dimensions - a truly spiritual quality."

I can be a skimmer. I know that to be true of myself but it's not something I am proud of. In th process of my skimming I fail to truly notice the wonder around me or even the presence of God around me. We often find ourselves empty and lacking fulfillment. Maybe it's because we skim so much of life. Life has a depth and a richness about it that is hidden away in the ordinary but it doesnt just jump out at us and demand we look at it. It takes noticing and paying attention. With all the spiritual practices I could be doing, taking time to notice and pay attention may be what ultimately saves my soul in the end.

Happiness in Any Circumstance - by Alfred Delp. SJ

"It does happen, even under these circumstances, that every now and then my whole being is flooded with pulsating life and my heart can scarcely contain the delirious joy there is in it. Suddenly, without any cause that I can perceive, without knowing why or by what right, my spirits soar again and there is not a doubt in my mind that all the promises hold good.... Outwardly nothing is changed. The hopelessness of the situation remains only too obvious; yet one can face it undismayed. One is content to leave everything in God's hands. And that is the whole point. Happiness in this life is inextricably mixed with God. Fellow creatures can be the means of giving us much pleasure and of creating conditions which are comfortable and delightful, but the success of this depends upon the extent to which the recipient is capable of recognizing the good and accepting it. And even this capacity is dependent on our relationship with God."

Source: Prison Writings: Meditations

Your One Wild and Precious Life

Yesterday in my message I ended with a poem by Mary Oliver. Her last two lines are the most recognizable but here is the whole poem:

Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, hot to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

What a penetrating question to ask halfway through one's life...or even near the end..."Tell me, what else should I have done?" In the poem she pays attention to the grasshopper and all that is around her but how much does she pay attention to her life? How much do we pay attention to our lives? To our dreams, aspirations, passions, and creative callings?

How do you answer those two last lines?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Called First to Belong to Christ

“We are not called primarily to create new structures for the church in this age; we are not called primarily to a program of service, or to dream dreams or have visions. We are called first of all to belong to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and to keep our lives warmed at the hearth of His life. it is there the fire wil be lit which will create new structures and programs of service that will draw others into the circle to dream dreams and have visions.
“To understand this is to be thrown back upon those disciplines that are the only known gateways to the grace of God; for how do we fulfill the command to love, except that we learn it of God, and how do we learn it of God, except that we pray, and live under His word and percieve His world?”
(E. O’Connor, Call to Commitment (1963) 92.)

Blessing the World by Mending the World

I have often been intrigued by the notion of "blessing the world." It's important for me because I am one that believes our call for mission can be traced back to God's call on Abraham and Sarah. God's call was for Abraham to lead a nation - a people - that would be blessed and would bless in return. Unfortunately, too many TV preachers and religious hucksters have caused us to think that to be "blessed" is simply to make alot of money and have alot of nice things. If you don't have that, you are not blessed. But, I keep suspecting that to "bless" the world goes alot deeper then that. Thank goodness I came across some stuff I read from Walter Brueggemann a while back. In his book, The Word the Redescribes the World, Brueggemann writes:

"Thus blessing is that the world should be generous, abundant, and frutiful, bespeaking effectiveness in generative fertility, material abundance, and this-worldly prosperity. Perhaps out best way to speak of this mandate is to think of 'shalom' in the broadest scope. Israel's life is to make the world work better according to the intention of the creator. That is an immense mission given to this one man (Abraham) and his family!...It is the missional mandate of God to Abraham that Abraham shoudl exist so that the general condition of curse in the world is turned to a general condition of blessing, life, and well-being...Israel's mission is to mend the world in all its parts. That is Israel's raison d'etre in the midst of creation...the mandate in Genesis is not to make the nations over into Israelites, nor even to make them Yahwists. The focus is kept upon the improvement of the quality of life as willed by the creator God."

For my own purposes, I have always felt that a simple call of the church is to mend, tend, and send. In other words, we are to mend broken lives...and mend creation. We are then to tend to the spiritual growth of those in our community...and then we are to send folks out so they can engage in mending the world. I appreciate what Brueggemann has to say by indicating that the goal is not to make "...the nations into Israelites, nor even to make them Yahwists. The focus is kept upon the improvement of the quality of life as willed by the Creator God."

Makes me wonder if ultimately when we are to "bless" the world that the focus is not so much on whether people are converted by moreso on the fact that we seek to improve the quality of life for everyone - as willed by God. This has huge implications for issues such as healthcare, poverty, homelessness, even ministering to those who are laid off, bankrupt, and addicted to consumerism.

We bless the world by mending the world - as willed by God.

God's Call- An Invitation to Adventure

"God's call, vocation, is twofold. God calls us saying, 'Come and follow me.' We arrive and then we must follow. We find but must go on seeking. God's call is a never-ending call, to the unknown, to adventure, to follow him in the night, in solitude. It is a call incessantly to go further, and further. For it is not static but dynamic (as creation is also dynamic) and reaching him means going on and on. God's call is like the call to become an explorer; it is an invitation to adventure."
(Ernesto Cardenal)

To see God's call on our lives is to see the spiritual journey in a completely different way. We don't anticipate anything new happening so we often don't look for the new. We expect things to stay the same...the way they are...with just a little religious veneer over the whole experience. We may be "finders" in the spiritual life but we are also "seekers" - and the seeking never ends. To do church is not to enter into a way of "blessing our static existence" but church...worship...spiritual practices...are a way of nudging us along, encouraging us along the way...guiding us on the journey...as we engage in our spiritual journey.

To see the spiritual life as an "invitation to adventure" is to open ourselves up to a whole new way of seeing...and believing. Sometimes I run into "spiritual people" who seem to be having anything but an adventure. The spiritual life seems a drudgery. It adds nothing to their lives. It keeps them respectable but that's it. We need to move far beyond the notion that Jesus came to our world just so we could figure out how to live respectable lives. Jesus came so that we could live lives of redemptive risk, of holy adventure, to explore depths we would otherwise never explore.

The Great Task of the Spiritual Journey - Claiming Our Belovedness

“The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing. This is not as easy as it sounds. The powers of the darkness around us are strong, and our world finds it easier to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people. But when we keep listening attentively to the voice calling us the Beloved, it becomes possible to live our brokenness, not as a confirmation of our fear that we are worthless, but as an opportunity to purify and deepen the blessing that rests upon us…And so the great task becomes that of allowing the blessing to touch us in our brokenness. Then our brokenness will gradually come to be seen as an opening toward the full acceptance of ourselves as the Beloved.”

(Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved)

When I think of being "the Beloved" I always go back to the place of Jesus' baptism. At that moment that Jesus came out of the water he heard these words, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased." I have felt for a very long time that it was those words that gave Jesus the self-identity he needed to fulfill his call. He knew at that point that there was no way he could displease God or cancel out the affection of his Father. Jesus knew at that point that it was not possible to disappoint God. As Jesus lived into that he was able to live a life that fully expressed his truest self because he did not fear rejection.

Our great task is to hear those words, "This is my son / daughter in whom I am well pleased." If we have heard that from our earthly parents - we are blessed beyond measure. If we didnt, we can hear it from the heart of God. Even if we did receive that kind of affirmation from our parents, we need to hear it from God daily in order to live into our truest self. We hold back in life because we feel worthless and we fear rejection. We live with fragile identities. God's love and blessing solidifies our identity and surrounds it with God's great pleasure and delight. To know that is to live an authentic life with courage and to go about loving others freely.

Expanding Our Hearts In Love

I have said on one then more occasion - and I have not been the first - that there are two basic emotions in life. Love and fear. One cannot love what they fear and to fear something - or someone - is to create a barrier to love. We often have trouble loving ourselves because we fear what we will see and we fear God will not accept us if we are honest about ourselves. When we fear people who are different then us we find it hard to love them. When we fear people who think or believe differently then us we find it difficult to love them. The Scriptures remind us that "perfect love casts out fear". Not "perfect" in the sense of neurotic perfection but in this case "perfect" means "on the way to wholeness or completeness." So, a complete love casts out fear and invites others in.

I like how Joyce Rupp describes the nature of love in her book The Open Door:

"One of love's marvelous qualities is its capacity to never cease growing. As our selflessness expands, it continually affects our world. May a day never pass without attempting to keep in our hearts the expansive love that Brad and Jan Lundy visualize:

'Imagine what life would be life if this love continued to expand, it if moved through our families, out into our neighborhoods and towns. Imagine waves of love continuing to roll, building in intensity, surging across boundaries and borders into other countries, dissolving barriers between people and nations. This Sea of Love grows in scope, in power, until everything in its pathy is absorbed by it, enlivened and healed by it. Until everything, everyone, is awash in Love. What will our world be like if Love is all there is?

Today, anoint the world with your love!

"God's Love" by Thomas Merton

"If I were looking for God, every event and every moment would sow, in my will, grains of God's life, that would spring up one day in a tremendous harvest. For it is God's love that warms me in the sun and God's love that sends the cold rain. It is God's love that feeds me in the bread I eat and God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick, and the hot summer when I labor and my clothes are full of sweat: but it is God who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the wood. God's love spreads the shade by the sycamore over my head and sends the water-boy along the edge of the wheat field with a bucket from the spring, while the laborers are resting and the mules stand under the tree. It is God's love that speaks to me in the birds and streams but also behind the clamor of the city God speaks to me in God's judgments, and all these things are seeds sent to me from God's will. If they would take root in my liberty, and if God's will would grow from my freedom, I would become the love that God is, and my harvest would be God's glory and my own joy. And I would grow together with thousands and millions of other freedoms into the gold of one huge field praising God, loaded with increase, loaded with corn."

"A Prayer for Gathering Ourselves"

Often in a Quaker meeting we here the term "the gathered meeting". This often conveys a sense of being drawn together as one body as well as feeling drawn together in God. For me, it always feels like those separate pieces of my life...those cluttered areas of my life...are pulled together into one complete whole and this "complete whole" is what it feels like to be centered.

Yesterday in meeting I read the following prayer as a way to call us to worship:

"O God, gather me
to be with you
as you are with me.
Keep me in touch with myself
with my needs,
with my anxieties
my angers
my pains
my corruptions
that I may claim them as my own
rather than blame them on someone else.

O Lord, deepen my wounds
into wisdom
shape my weaknesses
into compassion
gentle my envy
into enjoyment
my fear into trust
my guilt into honest
O God, gather me
to be with you
as you are with me."
(Ted Loder, Guerrilas of Grace)

As I shared that prayer yesterday on more than one occasion, I was continually struck by the line, "Keep my in touch with myself, my need, my anxieties, my angers, my pains, my corruptions, that I may claim them as my own rather then blame them on someone else."
It is so easy for me to blame others or circumstances for how I am feeling, what I am needing, what I am anxious about, and what angers me. Often I refuse to own these parts of myself and look for ways to pass the blame or at least dump the "emotional load" on others. Part of my growing edge is to not only be in touch with myself at the deepest level but to also own myself to the point that I own my condition and accept responsibility for it. Only then will I truly know what it feels like to have a gathered soul.

"Will You Love Me" by Gordon Cosby

One of my "long distance spiritual mentors"is Gordon Cosby. Gordon is 92 years old and is the founder of the Church of the Savior community in Washington D.C. He has always challenged me in his writings about living in the way of Jesus as well as living in authentic spiritual community. Here is the latest from Gordon. In this wonderful article, he describes how ultimately living the spiritual life is a life lived in a love relationship with Jesus.

"All of us need to know that we are loved. And just as we need to know that we are loved, Jesus needs to know that he is loved. Just as we need to listen to Jesus’ declarations of love for us, we also need to tell Jesus that we love him and that we want to be closer and closer to him forever. Jesus’ love for us and our love for Jesus is a mutual love affair.

Everything else is changed by that relationship. Nothing can be separated from it. Every friendship, every love relationship, is transformed by a consuming friendship with Jesus. All our money, all our work is an expression of our love for Jesus and his love for us. We show our love for Jesus by listening to him and taking on his dream for our city, our nation and our world—all of creation. Jesus and Jesus’ dream go together.

We take on Jesus’ dream and commit ourselves to serving his dream for the rest of our lives. And even when we die, we die into our next assignment, whatever Jesus wants us to do for him, until the day that everything and everybody is healed. Until everything and everybody is sitting down together at the feast that God has been preparing for all of us since the beginning of time.

We can’t love Jesus without loving everybody—our neighbors and our enemies. When we let Jesus love us, and when we start to love each other with Jesus’ love, we’ll hardly even remember all the racial stuff that used to separate us. Or all the money stuff that kept us apart. We won’t remember who went to college and who went to prison and all the terrible chasms between us and all the terrible ways we’ve hurt each other—we’ll only remember that Jesus forgives us and loves us and we forgive everyone and love everyone. We’ll feel connected deeply in our hearts to all things and all people—and even to the trees and the sky and the birds and the water and the fish.

ALL things will be made new because of our love, because of Jesus’ love.

So we commit ourselves to helping Jesus carry his dream of love for everything and everybody. We’ll take on his yoke and walk beside him, helping him do whatever he wants us to do. And Jesus says, “I love you, and I’m so glad you love me and are ready to be yoked with me. I know a few other people in Washington, DC, whom I love deeply. They, like you, have heard my voice and responded. I want you to know one another in your depths. Even though it might seem like you’re different from each other, you’re really the same inside. I want you to start loving each other and then take my love to those who don’t know yet how much I love them, too.”

So the question is simply this: Will we love Jesus by loving one another?"

Have a blessed day in the love of Jesus and loving others!

Prayers for Freedom

These are a couple days late but here are some "prayers for freedom" that are worth passing on and taking a look at during our day...

Gracious God, when the struggles of life hem me in on every side, open me to the freedom of your presence that can help me see beyond every restriction, every limit that binds me.

O God, give me the wisdom to see the subtle ways people can be enslaved and the courage to speak for those who have no voice. I ask this for the sake of your love.

Gracious One, may we honor the freedom you have given each of us, by refusing to judge those who are different from us.

O God, when we wake to yet another day of wonder and joy in the beauty of your creation, give us the heart to keep our needs simple, our desires soft, our wills pliable, so that we never participate in the exploitation of the earth, which is the work of your hands.

O God, wash my eyes clean, so I see the ugliness that steals life and hope from others. Do not let the insistence on my own liberty be the ground upon which others are denied freedom

The Potters Wheel

All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,–
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

RB Browning, “Rabbi Ben Ezra”

A Spiritual Journey - by Wendell Berry

"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,no matter how long,but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home."

Berry's vision of the spiritual journey reminds me that growth in the spiritual life is not about the "huge moments" or the spiritual "big deals" but about the small steps we take each dayand each moment. It is a journey of "spiritual inches" which, over time, adds up to my character and quality of soul.

A Prayer for Growing and Expanding Our Hearts

O Divine Love, you stand everlastingly outside the closed doors of our souls,knocking ever and again. Will you not now give me grace to throw open all my soul’s doors? Today let every closed door that has hitherto robbed mylife of air and light and love be opened.

Give me an open mind, O God, a mind ready to receive and to welcome such new light of knowledge as it is your will to reveal to me. Let not the past ever be so dear to me as to set a limit to the future. Give me courage to change my mind, when that is needed. Let me be tolerant to the thoughts of others and hospitable to such light as may come to me through them.

Give me open eyes, O God, eyes quick to discover your indwelling in the world which you have made. Let all lovely things fill me with gladness and let them uplift my mind to your everlasting loveliness. Forgive my pastblindness to the grandeur and glory of nature, to the charm of little children, to the sublimities of human story, and to all the intimations of your presence which these things contain.

Give me open hands, O God, hands ready to share with all who are in want the blessings with which you have enriched my life. Deliver me from all meanness and miserliness. Let me hold my money in stewardship and all my worldly goods in trust for you.

A Diary of Private Prayer, John Baillie

Beauty as Sacrament

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Emotional Attachments to Celebrity Status

I doubt I am the only one that feels that Michael Jackson's death has had enough coverage and it's time to move on. But, it would seem that there are plenty of folks that are having trouble in their own way "moving on". They seem to be very emotionally attached to the person of Michael Jackson that his death has brought them to a standstill. I would not for a minute say that we should not grieve when people die. What I do wonder at is why we tend to go overboard when folks of celebrity status die and why we grieve with such intensity when there are so many other things we can be grieving about.

Why dont' we grieve about...
> the countless lives lost both in Afghanistan and Iraq...American and Iraqis / Afghanistan
> the seemingly reckless behavior of countries as the make threats to wipe out other countries
> the countless number of families and individuals who suffer from lack of adequate health coverage
> the many who have lost their jobs, in fear of losing their job, or stuck in a dead-end situation because they have no options
> the countless refugees in other countries who flee violence, tribal warfare, and oppressive regimes and don't have the basic needs of food, clothing, and even water

There is so much else we can grieve about that grieving endlessly about celebrities dying or sports athletes leaving teams and playing for other teams in order to make more money seems out of balance - way off center.

Grieving is important - but grieving for the right reasons...in the right way...for the right causes.

The Ultimate Source of Fulfillment and Happiness

I was skimming through the classic book, Centering Prayer by Basil Pennington and I came across this quote:

"Much of the unhappiness in our world comes from our seeking to find fulfillment and happiness in things that ultimately cannot satisfy us. In fact, only One can truly satisfy us and that is our God...To choose as the ultimate goal of our lives anything less than God will leave us frustrated, unsatsified, despairing of finding any meaning that is worthy of us, anything that can satisfy the limitless hunger of our minds to know, of our hearts to love. If we do not see all the other things we choose in life as in some way opening out to this infinite fullness, they will prove to be dead ends. Not matter how good and beautiful they may be, no matter how much of ourselves we invest in them, there will come a time when we will say, 'Is this all there is?' And life will appear as a cruel joke, a project that can only lead to frustration and misery. It will be something we need to escape from by drugs, liquor, the passing excitment of sex; something we will try to sleep off or let slip away while we sit mindless before the 'boob tube.' For only so long can we chase, breathless, after passing goods before we discover the cruelty of their limits." (p.142)

God doesnt desire that we not enjoy life. Only that we do not substitute the things that we enjoy for the Source of our enjoyment. When we do that, they become idols and we seek to find fulfillment and happiness in them. They become spiritual dead ends. God desires that we do enjoy life, that we do experience happiness and fulfillment. There is nothing self-serving in any of that. But, God also desires that we recognize God as the ultimate Source of all that is good and beautiful and enjoyable.

So Beautiful...God As Relationship - Not A Principle

I just picked up Len Sweet's most recent book So Beautiful and am finding that it's full of great quotes and nuggets of truth. I intend to sit down and read the whole thing but here is one quote that already is drawing me into what he has to say:

"If God were a thing or a principle, we could discover God through things and principles. But if God is not a thing but a Spirit, and a personal God at that, then God is truly discovered in personal relationship. We must invite others to venture into a personal relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, not matter how tenative, no matter if all opinions are open, and trust the Spirit to take it from there...Jesus never one mentions religion or orthodox theology, nor does he outline certain religious 'beliefs' and 'precepts' by which we wil be judged. He outlines actions by which we will be judged, but not propositions and creeds. The problem with religion as a 'belief system' is what I call the 'belief relief.' The relief of belief is that a belief doesnt force you to do anything other than to 'believe' or to 'think' it. Relations require action; beliefs require only assent. You can believe something without changin one iota how you live and move in the world...There are twenty-one original prayers that Jesus prayed in the Gospels. Every one of them begins by addressing God as Father, a name drawn from human relationships, not from philosophy. The creeds begin, 'I believe.' But Jesus begins, 'Our Father.' "

The Redeeming Power of Gratitude

This is a portion of an article written by David Steindl-Rast O.S.B
You can see more of his writings at www.gratefulness.org

As you read it, be mindful of how your sense of gratitude can be a powerful force in your sphere of incluence today.

"Violence has roots in every heart. It is within my own heart that I must recognize fear, agitation, coldness, alienation, blind anger and the impulse to retaliation. Here in my heart I can turn fear into courageous trust, agitation into stillness, confusion into clarity, isolation into a sense of belonging, alienation into love, and irrational reaction into Common Sense. The creative intelligence of gratefulness will suggest to each one of us how to go about this task. As examples I will list here five small gestures of gratitude that I have personally tested. They create a ripple effect to counteract violence.
All gratitude expresses trust. Suspicion will not even recognize a gift as gift: who can prove that it isn't a lure, a bribe, a trap? Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so overcomes fear. The very air has been electrified by fearfulness these days, a fearfulness fostered and manipulated by politicians and the media. There lies our greatest danger: fear perpetuates violence. Mobilize the courage of your heart. Say one word today that will give a fearful person courage.
Because gratitude expresses courage, it spreads calm. Calm of this kind is quite compatible with deep emotions. In fact, mass hysteria fostered by the media betrays a morbid curiosity rather than deep feeling—superficial agitation rather than a deep current of compassion. The truly compassionate ones are calm and strong. Make a firm resolution never to repeat stories and rumors that spread fear. From the stillness of your heart's core reach out. Be calm and spread calm.
When you are grateful, your heart is open—open towards others, open for surprise. When disasters hit we often see remarkable examples of this openness: strangers helping strangers sometimes in heroic ways. Others turn away, isolate themselves, dare even less than at other times to look at each other. Violence begins with isolation. Break this pattern. Make contact with people whom you normally ignore—eye-contact at least—with the cashier at the supermarket, someone on the elevator, a beggar. Look a stranger in the eyes today and realize that there are no strangers.
You can feel either grateful or alienated, but never both at the same time. Gratefulness drives out alienation; there is not room for both in the same heart. When you are grateful you know that you belong to a network of give-and-take and you say "yes" to that belonging. This "yes" is the essence of love. You need no words to express it; a smile will do to put your "yes" into action. Don't let it matter to you whether or not the other one smiles back. Give someone an unexpected smile today and so contribute your share to peace on earth.
What your gratefulness does for yourself is as important as what it does for others. Gratefulness boosts your sense of belonging; your sense of belonging in turn boosts your Common Sense—not the conventional mind set which we often confuse with it. The common sense that springs from gratefulness is incompatible with a set mind. It is just another name for thinking wedded to cosmic intelligence. Your "yes" to belonging attunes you to the common concerns shared by all human beings—all beings for that matter. In a world we hold in common, nothing else makes sense but Common Sense. We have only one enemy: Our common enemy is violence. Common Sense tells us: we can stop violence only by stopping to act violently; war is no way to peace. Listen to the news today and put at least one item to the test of Common Sense."

Prayer of the Ropes End

"God, this is too big for me. Take over. Take over all the way. I give myself to your strong heart. Lift me, pray for me, endfold me."
(Flora Wuellner)

Practicing God's Presence

Not too long ago, author John Ortberg wrote a book entitled God Is Closer Than You Think. It was a book about how to recognize God in the everyday...in our ordinary existence. Early on in his book, Ortberg offers this definition of spiritual growth: "Spiritual growth...is simply increasing our capacity to experience the presence of God." This definition is so much different then how folks so often define spiritual growth today. We often define spiritual growth in an "event" type of way...in other words...the more "events" you show up to the more spiritual you are. So, if I attend all sorts of religious events and spiritual activities then I must be a spiritual person. The issue is we can become so busy in spiritual activities but yet have no inward change occuring. Our capacity to experience God's presence has not increased.

In his book, Ortberg offers some "foundational truths" to guide us in increasing our capacity to experience God...

1) God is always present and active in my life, whether or not I see God.
2) Coming to recognize and experience god's presence is learned behavior; I can cultivate it.
3) My task is to meet God in this moment.
4) I am always tempted to live "outside" this moment. When I do that, I lose my sense of God's presence.
5) Sometimes God seems far away for reasons I do not understand. Those moments, too, are opportunities to learn.
6) Whenever I fail, I can always start again right away.
7) No one knows the full extent to which a human being can experience God's presence.
8) My desire for God ebbs and flows, but God's desire for me is constant.
9) Every thought carries a "spiritual charge" that moves me a little closer to or a little farther from God.
10) Every aspect of my life - work, relationships, hobbies, errands - is of immense and genuine interest to God.
11) My path to experiencing God's presence will not look quite like anyone else's.
12) Straining and trying harder do not help.

Orberg recommends reviewing these truth's once a day for two weeks in order to cultivate the practice of God's presence. Whether you do that or not, I think it's important to realize that increasing my capacity to experience God's presence is something I can cultivate. It doesn't "just happen" - there can and needs to be some intention on my part.

Slivers of Truth

"The real truth is that God is too great to be lost in the smallness of any single sliver of life. Truth is One, yes, but truth is many at the same time.The greatest danger of them all may be in buying into too small a part of the truth. When that happens, change, growth, repentance, and development are impossible. We find ourselves frozen in the shards of yesterday.Truth is not any one truth, not any one institution, not any one way. Nor can we truly bend ourselves to all of them. Instead, each of us must live our own singular piece of the truth with love. What else can possibly be the final test of what is truly true? "

(Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World)

Making Mistakes In Our Spiritual Evolution

One of my favorite authors / bloggers is Jim Palmer out of Nashville, Tennessee. He has written two very good books..."Divine Nobodies" and "Wide Open Spaces." In these books he more or less chronicles his spiritual growth and his spiritual journey from who was all caught up in religion to one who is now "shedding religion." He blogs regularly at www.divinenobodies.com I decided to include this whole post because of the good things Jim has to say about making mistakes in our spiritual evolution and journey. Read...and enjoy!

"What follows are a few mistakes I’ve made in my spiritual evolution and lived to tell about it. Referring to these as “mistakes” may be unfair. What I’m about to describe is fairly normal, probably unavoidable, and perhaps even necessary at the time. I own these choices as part of my journey these past few years. As it turns out, these choices didn’t defeat me. I refer to them as “mistakes” because they don’t seem to be very productive as a regular practice, and I would not intentionally repeat them again.

1) Fundamentalism
The term “fundamentalism” is probably most associated with ultra-conservative, legalistic Christians. However, I’ve discovered there are progressive/liberal Christian fundamentalists, Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanistic fundamentalists, Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish fundamentalists, and New Age fundamentalists. What I mean by “fundamentalist” is postulating your belief system, philosophy, understandings or experiences as superior to others, which means others with different beliefs, understandings or experiences are either wrong or deceived.
In my case, I left Christian fundamentalism behind but managed to create a different fundamentalism around whatever my new understanding, concept, experience, or discovery was at the time. In other words, each step of enlightenment became the new “it” or standard that I judged others by. I wasn’t necessarily nasty or belligerent about it but there was a certain silent pride and arrogance to it.

2) Over-correction
You are driving down the street and notice you are about to go off the road into a ditch. Your reaction is to grab the wheel and by over-correcting, you fly across the road and off into the ditch on the other side. By avoiding one ditch, you managed to steer right into another. It’s no secret that any person who feels led astray and betrayed by their religion is likely to become it’s biggest critic. It’s not uncommon that in such cases the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. For example, a person lives many years under the oppression of religion. In reaction to this, they over-correct and become an Atheist. There are lots of options between a hideous concept of God and concluding there is no God at all, but when you over-correct you skid by all the stuff in the middle and just go into the ditch on the side.
By the way, please don’t hear me saying that every person’s beliefs are the result of over-correction. I know Atheists who are not guilty of over-correction - they are Atheists because they have done their due diligence and have genuinely concluded that the existence of God is neither possible nor useful. Another example may be someone who concludes that the Bible isn’t a “supernatural” book and over-corrects to the view that the Bible has no value at all. For me, I have had some instances of over-correction. For example, organized church and religious rituals were not meaningful for me, and as a reaction I concluded all organized church and religious rituals are intrinsically meaningless and has no real objective value for anyone.

3) Insecurity
Insecurity can express itself in a strong need for your beliefs and experiences to be validated by others. How do others validate your beliefs and experiences? By agreeing with or sharing your beliefs and experiences. And so it’s not brain surgery to see that people who don’t agree or share in your beliefs and experiences are a threat to your sense of identity. You feel invalidated. It’s very difficult to truly accept and learn from another as long as your need for validation is running the show. What happens is that you begin dividing people up on sides. You want people on “your side” because that makes you feel secure and validated. People on the “other side” are seen as the enemy. Needing to be “right” is often a issue of insecurity and needing validation from others. Trust me, I made a fine art out of this.

4) Laziness
I don’t mean for the word to sound as harsh as it might seem. Here’s my point. Most people want a formula or magic bullet. They are not truly willing to do their own due diligence at a soul level, and would prefer someone just give them the answer. They are hoping for a formula that promises that if you do ‘A’ then ‘B’ will happen. Paradox, mystery, ambiguity, abstraction, self-honesty, vulnerability, humility are but a few of the things many people would like to avoid if possible, and would rather just have someone figure things out for them.
So, what mistakes have you made? In other words, what things have you discovered along the way that you’ve recognized as a hindrance in your journey? I guess it might require a dose of humility to share this sort of thing. I sometimes wonder if these kinds of issues hinder our truly learning from each other, and even accepting each other.

Consider this post to be the kind of thing where I’m asking you to draw upon your experience and wisdom from your journey. What have you learned? What would you have done different? Looking back, what mistakes have you made? Where do you see that you might have spared yourself or others a lot of difficulty? What is the wisdom you would share that we could all learn from? Every voice is welcomed regardless of where you are right now on your journey. People may be on totally opposite sides of the spectrum. Fine! I really hope we get responses from people who represent the entire spectrum."

So, what mistakes have you made?

Help Me Now to Unclutter My Life - Celtic Daily Prayer

Lord, help me now to unclutter my life,

to organize myself in the direction of simplicity.

Lord, teach me to listen to my heart;

teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it.

Lord, I give You these stirrings inside me,

I give you my discontent,

I give you my restlessness,

I give you my doubt,I give you my despair,

I give you all the longings I hold inside.

Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth;

to listen seriously and follow where they lead

through the breathtaking empty space of an open door

Making Up There Come Down Here...Thine Kingdom Come

One of my favorite authors is John Ortberg. In his book, God Is Closer Than You Think, he gives a great description of what it looks like to truly bring God's kingdom closer to where we live:

"God, make up there come down here.

It can happen. Every time you are in conflict with someone, want to hurt them, gossip about them, or avoid them, but instead go to them and seek reconciliation and forgiveness - The kingdom is breaking into this world.

Every time you have a chunk of money and decide to give sacrificially to somebody who is hungry or homeless or poor - The kingdom is breaking into the world.

Anytime someone has an addiction and wants to partner with God so much they're willing to stop hiding, acknowledge the truth, and get help from a loving community - The kingdom is breaking into the world.

Every time a workaholic parent decides to stop idolizing their job, rearranges their life to being to love and care for the little children entrusted to them - The kingdom is breaking into the world.

Every time you love, every time you include someone who's lonely, ever time you encourage someone who's defeated, every time you challenge somebody who's wandering off the path, every time you serve the under-resourced - it is a sign the kingdom is once more breaking into the world."

We often think in terms of big ideas, big events, and big plans when it comes to bringing God's kingdom and presence to bear on this world. What we often miss, though, are the small and ordinary ways we can incarnate God's presence in our world and the places we exist. To pray, "Thy kingdom come, they will be done" is not a wish...it is a call to action! We are called to put into action God's presence and make real God's reign...God's kingdom.

Living In The House of Fear or the House of Love

“There are two houses in this world: the house of fear, and the house of love…

“When Jesus says, “Make your home in me as I make mine in you” (Jn.15) he offers us an intimate place that we can call home. Home is that place or space where we do not have to be afraid but can let go of our defenses and be free, free from worries, free from tensions, free from pressures. Home is where we can laugh and cry, embarce and dance, sleep long and dream quietly, eat, read, play, watch the fire, listen to music, and be with a friend. Home is where we can rest and be healed.. a good place to be, it is the house of love.

“But in this world millions of people are homeless. Some are homeless because of their inner anguish, while others are homeless because they have been driven from their own towns and countries. In prisons, mental hosptials, refugee camps, in hidden-away apartments, in nursing homes and overnight shelters we get a glimpse of homelessness.

“Speaking of himself as the vine and of his disciples as the branches, Jesus says: “Make your home in me.” This is an invitation to intimacy. Then he adds: “Those who remain in me with me in them, bear fruit in plenty.” This is an invitation to fecundity. Finally, when he says, “I have told you this so that your joy may be full,” he promises ecstasy.”

Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns

Blessed Are the Confused

Blessed Are the Confused

by M. Scott Peck

"When Jesus gave his big sermon, the first words out of his mouth were: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are a number of ways to translate "poor in spirit," but on an intellectual level, the best translation is "confused." Blessed are the confused. If you ask why Jesus might have said that, then I must point out to you that confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning. For an old idea to die and a new and better idea to take place, we have to go through periods of confusion. It is uncomfortable, sometimes painful to be in such periods. Nonetheless it is blessed because when we are in them, we are open to the new, we are looking, we are growing. And so it is that Jesus said, "Blessed are the confused." Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they're doing. It is not committed by people who think of themselves as confused. It is not committed by the poor in spirit."

If the confused are blessed then I am truly one blessed person! How about you? Are you feeling blessed today...and hopeful...now that you know the confused are blessed?

Trust Your Experience

"In recent years I seem to hear God say, 'Put your books away. Be with me. Trust your experience. There are no experts in prayer, only people who have been faithful to the ache.' I reflecton this with both anxiety and joy. Why shouldn'tour experiences be filled with God? Who do we think it is who is breathing in us? Where do we think this ache has come from? And has it ever crossed our minds that God, too, has a deep yearning for us? This is the only message I've been receiving in prayer these days: 'Forget the experts for a while. Trust your own experience.'
Trusting our own experience is not nearly as easy as it sounds. We have not been brought up to trust our own experience; we have been encouraged to listen to 'the ones who know.'...You are a dwelling place for the Source of AllLIfe. You are an offspring of the One who said, 'I Am who Am.' If the One who gave you birth lives within you, surely you can find some resources there in your sacred Center. An expert lives within you. An expert breathes out of you. Are you able to be still enough to become intimate with the One who lives within? This is the only expert you will ever meet. Your life is entwined with the God who gave you birth. Frail dust, remember, you are splendor!"

( A Tree Full of Angels, Macrina Wiederkehr)

We live in an "expert saturated" culture. We leave it up to the "experts" to handle all the tough issues of life. To be sure, there are those that are trained to help us through tough times and help us see issues that we might never see on our own. But, we also lose sight of the fact that our present experience can often be our best teacher and our most reliable guide. Present with our experience is the Living Teacher - the Living Christ.

We delegate our spiritual journey and our spiritual work to others. We delegate it to them and expect them to do it for us and simply give us a report - we want them to "get back to us." We delegate it to authors, pastors, priests, teachers, government officials, kings, queens, governors, and presidents. We delegate our growth, understanding, and realities to the "experts".

Friends, an "expert" lives within - an expert called "your experience" guided and informed the the Living God who resided within us all and is the source of our experience. Trust your experience!

The Theoretical Person

"The picture that I had inside me was more real than anything outside, and yet it was getting ever smaller and farther away and harder to call back. That, I guess is why I got so sad. I was living, but I was not living my life. So far as I could see, I was going nowhere. And now, more and more, I seemed also to have come from nowhere. Without a loved life to live, I was becoming more and more a theoretical person, as if I might have been a figment of institutional self-justification: a theoretical ignorant person from the sticks, who one day would go to a theoretical somewhere and make a theoretical something of himself - the implication being that until he became that something he would be nothing."

(words of Jayber Crow in Wendell Berry's novel, Jayber Crow)

Personal sadness is an elusive thing in the sense that we often don't know where it comes from and we're not sure we know where it will take us. Since it doesnt seem to take us anywhere we often look for where it comes from. We end up looking outside of ourselves to locate the source of our sadness and we try to fix it with things outside of ourselves. But, if young Jayber Crow is right...and I think he's on to something...the source of our sadness can often be found inside of ourselves. The sadness finds us when we realize that we are living...we're just not living our life. We're living but we are living the life everyone expects us to live and imagines us living. We have never truly given thought to who we are and where we might be going and what it is our hearts calls us to be and do. Jayber Crow says it well, "The picture that I had inside me was more real than anything outside, and yet it was getting smaller and farther away and harder to call back."

The picture that we have inside of us is often the dream that God plants within. It's the picture of who we feel called to be and do..it's the "God dream" planted within our soul. Young Jayer Crow is fighing with all his might to keep that dream alive amidst his struggles with who he is, where he is from, and where he is going. He is on a journey...literally...back home Port Williams where he eventually becomes the town barber. But, he is also on a different kind of journey - the journey back to who he truly is and what he truly believe. That picture of ourselves is inside of us and it is more real than anything outside but it gets smaller and farther away as the years go by. And, if we let it, that which is real inside of us becomes nothing more then a distant memory. It becomes so distant that we convince ourselves that it's not real and that it was foolish to believe we could ever do "this or that." Pretty soo, we just give up and we enter into living a resigned life...resigned to "that's just the way things are" and we go through the motions of doing what is most productive and necessary.

The spiritual journey, among other things, seems to me to be an experience of calling back that which is most real inside of each of us. It's a "going home" to who we truly are and who we knew we were created to be. The spiritual life is exactly that...a life. It's not an event. It's not a show. It's not an exercise in "impression management". It's a life - a life of calling back that which is more real within us - and living our life.

The danger, as Jayber Crow put is, is that we may end up living a "theoretical life". The meaningof "theory" is simply, "A set of ideas offering an explanation on how something work or why something happens but has not been completely proved." A "theoretical life" is a life that has all sort of opinions, explanations, and ideas...but it's not a life that has been lived. A theortical faith is the same - all sort of opinions, ideas, explanations, ideas, and answers - but not something that has really been lived. Jayber Crow tells us directly that without a loved life we simply become theoretical people...and what's worse...who we really are and were created to be becomes a distant memory which, some day, we might never be able to call back.

Dont' just live...live your life...live a loved life.

Being Changed By Questions

"By then I wasn't just asking questions; I was being changed by them. I was being changed by my prayers, which dwindled down nearer and nearer to silence, which weren't confrontations with God but with the difficulty - in my own mind, or in the human lot - of knowing what or how to pray. Lying awake at night, I could feel myself being changed - into what, I had no idea. It was worse than wondering if I had received the call. I wasn't just a student or a going-to-be preacher anymore. I was a lost traveler wandering in the woods, needing to be on my way somewhere but not knowing where."

Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry

I am just beginning this novel by Wendell Berry. It's about a young man who struggles with his "call" to ministry and in the end abandons that call and becomes a barber. Through his struggles, you read about his spiritual journey and his interactions with the various people of the town. In this novel - this story - I find myself reflected in the Jayber's thoughts and struggles.

In the end, we just don't ask questions, we are changed by them. Questions have a negative connotation with some folks - as if they signify doubt. And, maybe they do indicate doubt. But doubt is not the end of faith. Sometimes it's the beginning. If we allow them to, our questions will change us and not always for the negative - many times for the positive. Our questions change us into folks who realize that life is not always about having easy answers but sometimes living in the middle of ambiguity but with a deep faith in God who also resides in that ambiguity. Our questions change us into people who keep searching and keep exploring because we don't believe we hear the final word in this lifetime - but that there is more to learn, more to hear, and more to understand. Our questions keep us humble and open because we don't fall into the arrogance of feeling we now know it all.

A deep step in faith happens when we realize we are not just asking questions but that we are allowing the questions to change us. That's when we realize we are truly on a spiritual journey and a powerful search. And maybe, just maybe, there will be an answer along the way that will transform our hearts and souls.

Our Smaller Stories In Light of God's Story

Since the retreat with the good folks at the Advent Center, I have been contemplating the meaning of story even more. In preparation for teaching a summer series on Ephesians for an Adult Sunday morning class, I picked up the new commentary by N.T Wright entitled Paul for Everyone. In his introduction Ephesians and his beginning comments about chapter one in Ephesians, Wright as this to say:

"Paul's great prayer at the opening of this letter is a celebration of the larger story within which every single Christian story - every story of individual conversion, faith, spiritual life, obedience and hope - is set. Only by understanding and celebrating the larger story can we hope to understand everything that's going on in our own smaller stories, and so observe God at work in and through our own lives."

N.T. Wright's thought were just a reminder to me that our lives are truly made up of smaller stories. These stories are sometimes written by us and sometimes they are scripts handed to us through other people's expectations. Also, we find "substitute stories" that give our lives a sense of meaning and even hope. The only way we can truly understand our stories is to live them in light of the larger story which has to do with God and God's work in our life and world.

And, as a way of explaining the "contents" of this story, N.T Wright states it this way: "Look back over the story which Paul has told as an act of worship. God has taken the initiative; God has done what was necessary at great cost to himself, to buy us back from the slavery of sin; God has given us the spirit as a sign and foretaste of the whole renewed cosmos which awaits us as our inheritance. Discovering that you are to receive an inheritance like that should change your whole life. How can you not join in the hymn of praise."

Our story...our larger story...is a story or praise which gives shape and meaning to our smaller stories.

The Spiritual Life as Story - Advent Center Retreat, June 3-6, 2009

Last week I had the good fortune of being a presenter at a retreat sponsored by the Advent Center out of Mars Hill, NC. The Advent Center is a ministry that offers a place for folks to experience spirituality and forms of contemplative worship, centering prayer, and a variety of spiritual practices. It is inter-denominational and inter-faith although it has a defined Christian orientation. But, within it's Christian focus, it is very inclusive. The retreat was held at the Laurel Ridge Moravian Conference Center north of Wilkesboro, North Carolina - a beautiful conference center that is probably one of the best kept secrets in North Carolina...other then the Moravians...I'm sure they know about it.

The theme of the retreat was "A Story-Filled Life: Listening to and Living Into Our Stories." Essentially the focus was on acknowledging that our lives are shaped and formed by stories and that our life is, in fact, a living story. The question becomes - what is shaping and forming our personal story? Without a doubt, many forces, events, people, and places have formed and informed our personal stories. Some of these have been positive and some have not. The other piece to this retreat, then, was to connect up our personal stories with the Biblical story. Or, as Ron Martoia calls it, God's "Great Big Fat Story". In other words, how can God's story inform our personal stories and how can the great big story of the Biblical narrative inform our personal stories and journey? To this end, we are invited to listen to the Biblical story to see how it informs our story and where we are invited in.

In this retreat, we are invited to consider four areas that affect and impact our personal stories: events, places, people, and community. Each of these areas has the potential to have a significant impact on our personal story. And, in fact, they might already have. For my part, I sought to show how certain Biblical stories exemplified each of these areas. For example, the event of Jesus baptism and places such as Jacob wrestling with God or the woman at the well that interacted with Jesus. And, people such as Eli and Samuel or Ruth and Naomi. Each of these Bibical stories exemplified these areas and reminded us that we have had events, places, people, and even communites that have shaped our story. To this end, it was a few days of truly hearing people's stories and exploring our own stories.

I want to add what a fantastic job the leadership team of Amy Jennings, Stephanie Ford, and Paula Dempsey did in planning such a spiritually enriching event. I have spoken at events before but this was a first time of not only giving but receiving! A huge part of what enriched me were the worship times organized around the Daily Office. We had morning, noon, late afternoon, and evening prayes. It was a nice way to add a spiritual rhythm to our lives. This was a gift to me. Having come off a very hectic schedule prior to the retreat, the pace of the worship times, the music, and the intentional focus on prayer, centering, and seeking the Living Christ was like cool water to a parched soul.

I will have more to say about this retreat and it's theme but I would encourage everyone to check out the Advent Center and all it has to offer. These are wonderful folks offering a wonderful ministry that truly exemplifies hospitality. You can find out more about them at www.adventcenter.org

I close with this quote from Sue Monk Kidd: "A personal spiritual story is the narration of the unique movements of the human soul. At the deepest level we are stories being told by the Storyteller. Yet we are called to participate with God in the telling of our own tale, to become co-story-tellers, discovering and shaping our individual stories, and in doing so, enriching God's universal story."