Letting Go: Yep, We Need to Go that Far

Mindi Welton-Mitchell writes that the church needs to "let go of the building" in Letting Go. She builds her case well but stops short when she states, "I’m not suggesting everyone go out and sell their buildings."

I disagree. We need to go that far.


Until we give up our property, the church will continue to be viewed as -- and in fact be --  hypocritical. When Jesus called his first disciples, "immediately they left their nets and followed him." (Matthew 4:20 NRSV Read in context.) They left the security of their fishing business.


They left security and control behind to follow a scruffy messiah who didn't seem to know how royalty should act. Jesus was the President without secret service protection or Air Force One. He took on tasks considered beneath royalty. Jesus washed the filthy feet of guests, went to the outcast, ate with them, touched the untouchable, and in the process gave hope to the oppressed.


He did not build a synagogue and call people to him. He walked among the people.


The cost of discipleship to Jesus is ceding control to God. Following Jesus requires disruption of our lives of consumerism to seek justice in a world of unjust actions and systems that oppress. Leaving our safety nets behind, we hear the Spirit along a path that branches away from material security.


Followers walk among the people, learning from and with them. Though we sometimes fail, we strive to be God's loving, empathetic presence in a world of indifference. The church, however, is too often about security. The institution of the church itself possesses capitalism's symbols of success: property and financial investments.


Property has become Christians' idol that keeps us from God.  We feed our property-god with new roofs while people sleep under bridges. We slash Educational ministries, missions to those in need, and even Evangelism budgets when our golden calf demands new paint, carpet, or stained glass. With every expenditure we fear opening our doors to those in need will spoil the splendor we've created.


The time has come for the church to leave our nets and business behind and risk it all for the One we claim to follow.

Zen Ice Trays

Any drink is improved with ice. I put ice in my drinks in the hot summer, the warm spring, cool fall, and even the cold winter months. At least a couple of times a day the ice trays in my fridge need refilling. 


Turning the tap on to a fast, steady stream does a poor job of filling the trays, it not only wastes water as it splatters, but I get wet. There is no fast way to fill the trays.

 

Instead of whining and complaining about my lack of an icemaker, I've turned this time into a spiritual practice. I pause as I approach the sink, turning the faucet on to a near-drip.

I breathe in and I breathe out. 

The water we rely on to live, fills each compartment of the ice tray one drop at a time. I focus on the yellow-green ice tray, the water, and the task at hand. If my mind wanders to other thoughts, I redirect it to the source of life, water. If my emotions shift to impatience,

I breathe in and I  breathe out. 

 Spiritual practices do not have to include incense, candles, or chanting. They have their place but small, daily practices are what help me to be centered. Filling the ice trays helps me to be present in the moment.  I strive in my faith journey to focus on being, rather than doing. My particular challenge is to define myself by who I am rather than what I do. It's challenging in our noisy culture; I don't always succeed. 

But, I breathe in and I breathe out for a few minutes everyday as I pause to fill the ice trays.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's God! No, That's My Wife.

No, I'm not really suggesting that my wife is a god. That heresy is even beyond me. I suggest that it is in deep love that we glimpse the nature of the divine.


This is our double-trinity anniversary. My beloved, my imzadi, my soulmate and I were married thirty-three years ago today. In our three decades + three years the following are ways in which I've glimpsed the one I call God in our relationship.


Presence. Since the day we committed ourselves together Maggie has been present. When not able to be physically together she is within me. Even during my seminary years when we were separated by 350 miles and weeks, she would text me about little things in her day, seek my empathy, to check on something with which she knew I struggled, or to rejoice in my successes!


Unconditional love. Maggie's love for me is unconditional. Even when I don't deserve it, she offers me grace. Though, sometimes she must cool down, her love for me never wavers. The slammed car door as I drop her off unsettles me but not to my core. This is because I feel the depth of her love even when she's angry with me.


Sustaining love. In the 70s, Harry Nilsson sang "I can't live if living is without you." The love that Maggie and I share sustains us. Her love transforms me. I am not the person I would be without her. I could more readily give up food than the love of my beloved.


Reciprocal love. She needs me as much as I need her. I don't know why; it makes no sense to me. In the giving to her, I find a boundless supply of love. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her.  I know that the same is true of her love for me.


Knows me & sees me. Maggie's love, like that of God, is inexplicable. She loves me not despite my faults and annoying habits but through them and, because of them. What is more inexplicable than that?


Calls me out. Because Maggie knows me at the soul-level, she also knows when I'm taking the easy path. She sees when I've been sleeping, she knows if I'm awake, and knows if I've been bad or good. She's also not afraid to make it crystal clear that I need to be the person I'm capable of being.


Takes my side, protects me. When the world hands me lemons, Maggie makes the lemonade for me. I know that no matter how bad a day I've had she will take my side. She will wrap me in her arms and hold her fist to the world at the same time.


Never gives up on me. Ask our kids. We've been known to have some metaphorical "knock down, drag outs" in our time as a  married couple. Throughout it all, Maggie doesn't give up on me. She can sometimes get pissed -- beyond pissed -- but we always reconcile our differences and do the work necessary to heal our conflict.


So, though my imzadi is not God, it is within our relationship, within the nature of her love for me, that I so often glimpse the extravagant love of the One.


Related Posts


The Core Secret of Our Marriage
Keeping Covenant When the Storms Roll In

Good Soil Among the Rocks

‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ Mark 4: 9 NRSV

In our too-human rush to judgement, we can miss the central point of the teachings of Jesus. In the parable of the sower, Jesus emphasizes the receptivity of the soil - of our hearts - to hearing the Good News of love for all. He does not suggest the sower should withhold seed. Rather, he describes what we see all around us. Not all seeds or love we share take root. 

Nonetheless, Jesus calls us to plant seeds of love extravagantly. We may fear there is not enough love, withholding seeds from those we deem unworthy or bad risks, but this is not what Jesus teaches. It is not our role to pre-judge others and withhold our love-seeds from the rocks. To do so, is to assume that we know where the Realm of God will take root and blossom. Sometimes the seed planted among the rocks, finds good soil where we least expect.

Photo by Tim Graves

Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ Mark 4: 1-9 NRSV (Read in context.)

What if?

What if following Jesus isn't about the big things? What if it is about the small things we do: kindness, forgiving, smiling and laughing, listening, and even self-care? What if it isn't about professional ministry or earning a living but about a way of life lived in humble service? What if this service lacks vestments and collars or professional titles but is marked by our giving of ourselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually? What if the barely noticed, little things we do out of love are what God calls us toward? 


What if it is in each of these moments we allow God to speak through us? What if this is truly following Jesus, the One who took the very breath of God (1) into himself, and breathed it out into a broken world? What if we can be the very breath of God?


It could change the world.

...and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. 

Genesis 1:2a RSV

Read this in context.

****

(1) Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, Kindle Book edition, loc. 994. Robert Alter translates the Hebrew rua  as breath. It is variously translated as wind, spirit, and breath.

I Couldn't Have Picked Anyone Better!

One of amazing things about fatherhood is that my adult children have increased the size of my family. I'm not talking about grandchildren; that joy may come in its time. I'm talking about my children's significant others.


As my daughter and son have found life-partners, I've been blessed by a doubling of my children. It wasn't until Frances and, now, Breetel joined our family that I felt the depth of my father's words the first time I brought my beloved home. He said, "We couldn't have picked anyone better for you." 

My amazing children...all four of them!

My daughter and son are remarkable, phenomenal individuals.  (This is a fact not a father's pride.) Still, the love of another, somehow reveals a depth, a wholeness that I never saw in Isaac or Jessica before. Their love is more than a skin-deep affectation. Their love has added a vibrancy to who they were before.


Love is powerful in all its forms. Love transforms, makes us each more than we were. It defies the laws of physics. There is always an abundance and extravagance about love. Love reveals the Divine within us and in our relationship with others.

"...and the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13: 13b NRSV (Read this passage in context.)

Identity without Exclusion

I always stumble over the question. You know that simple one, "Where are you from?" Not only have my wife and I lived on both coasts and lots of places in between during our thirty-three year marriage, I moved around a lot as a kid.

The failure to provide a simple answer, I know, confounds people. We use place as a marker of identity. We also use education, skin color, political party, Myers-Briggs score, and religion as ways of labeling and identifying others. We seem to be hard-wired to define ourselves. The problem is that we too often define ourselves in contrast to others. 


At their best, identity markers start a conversation. At their worst, these labels  exclude and demonize those who are different. Labeling puts people into a definition. When we label others (or ourselves) we diminish the divinely gifted uniqueness of an individual. 


Political or religious fundamentalism has a tendency to define itself in contrast to the other. If you subscribe to the tenets of the inside group, you're accepted. If you do not you are evil or, at best, misguided and naive. Fundamentalism preys on exclusion and fear setting impenetrable boundaries around itself.


This approach to identity, can result in grandiose claims that hurt others. For example, Dennis Marcellino said in a recent post that "The Bible does say that if a person votes for a democrat (the promoters and supporters of sin) and were to die without repenting of that, he or she is going to hell." Marcellino is identifying his beliefs against the beliefs of others. 


A positive identity does not rely on putting others down. While I share a professed Christian faith with Mr. Marcellino, I identify my beliefs positively. For example, the primary Christian narrative of inclusive, extravagant love and resurrection helps me to make sense of my experience of the Divine. It gives me hope for the future. 


Regardless of someone else's beliefs, I find meaning in the Gospel of Jesus. This positive identification does not dismiss another person's journey or experience. My faith is not contingent upon your agreement or disagreement. (Though, my faith is challenged within the faith by the checks and balances of the Koinonia.) 



In our efforts to psychologically and emotionally cope with our changing culture and uncertain times, it is critical that we define ourselves positively. When we define ourselves against others, we risk falling into hatred and dehumanization of others. To fall into hatred or dehumanization of others is to fail to live up to the potential with which we were created. 


‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ Matthew 22: 36-40 NRSV (Read this passage in context.)

Liberation & Loss: What It Means to Follow the Spirit

Following the Spirit requires loss. Loss of control. It also means giving up things that used to matter. It is also liberating.

Responding to a "Holy Spirit moment," my wife and I embarked on a journey across the country. We sold our home and became renters. We said goodbye to a dog. We gave away all of our possessions but what fit in two cars, moved to Oregon, and sold one car upon arrival. Our response to the Spirit meant becoming more nomadic; we moved three times in ten months. I've simultaneously doubted myself and been confident that I'm on the path upon which God desires for me.


There are many things and attitudes that I've given up over the last year. I sobbed when my Matchbox car collection sold quickly on eBay. Not a day passes that I don't reach out for my beloved friend Jade who had to be put-down. I yearn to sing silly songs to her, give her too many dog treats, and feel her head resting on my leg.


Selling my car, in my mind, was giving up not only mobility but a sign of my personality. Like a cheating husband who looks at other women, I still fantasize when I see Scion xB's around town. Yet letting go of these and more were necessary to follow the direction the Divine has laid before me. We would have been in bankruptcy court before Christmas of last year had I not sold my car and emptied my pension to pay bills. 


***


It might seem that I would be in a deep depression but I am not. I did have several weeks of lethargy and blues in the midst of confusion when my literal interpretation of the precipitating "Holy Spirit moment" was shattered. I doubted my impressions, my intuition, my sense that the Spirit was leading this way because it didn't fit my image of what was to happen. (See Leading the Malleable Life Amid Hurricane Force Winds). Though, I worried during that time that I had abandoned the path I put one foot in front of the other.


Following the Spirit is trusting that which you sense. Our culture's idolization of rationality dismisses remaining faithful to that which we cannot quite see. In some ways it is anti-spiritual and severs an integral part of what it is to be part of humanity and creation. 


Hyper-rational thinking discounts intuition and trusting the Divine. In The Shack, Wm. Paul Young describes the Holy Spirit through the primary characters eyes:

"But he knew all this as more an impression of her than from actually seeing her, as she seemed to phase in and out of his vision." (Wm. Paul Young, The Shack, p. 85)

Even during times of discouragement, doubt, and fear, I follow. I whine a lot, yell at God some, but trust that the One who has set me upon this trail will not leave me lost in the wilderness alone. At times my vision is clear; I know I'm following the Spirit. Much of the time, however, I simply risk believing my impressions as the Holy Spirit seems to phase in and out of my vision.


The result is a generalized sense of contentment. I feel liberated from the impossible task of being in control of tomorrow. Following the Spirit is about being in the present. It is about living, caring, loving, and accepting the One who is within, between, and around us. When the Spirit dances just outside my vision, I try to trust my intuition and sixth sense. 


When I fail to trust as fully as I wish I would, I accept that feeling, too. I pause. I refocus. I pray. I make only those decisions that must be made that day. I remember the One who forgives and loves me extravagantly.

Hospitality & Resurrection (Sermon about Sodom & Gomorrah)

I preached this sermon at Hood River Valley Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on May 20, 2012. The scripture lesson is Genesis 19: 1-25. 

Our friends didn’t always appreciate our sense of humor. I remember one particular evening at the IHOP when the rest of the group moved to another table because the two of us - supposedly - were giggling too much. Bill had that effect on me. We were best friends. We were in high school. That meant it was his job to get me to snort my soda. 

At the end of the evening, I pulled into his driveway and turned off the car. We always talked one-on-one at the end of an evening with our friends. Our giggles out, the tone would become more serious. As two young men growing up in the late seventies, this is when we talked about girls, about our families, and about all the things that mattered most to us.

***

We all have that relative who we love dearly. You know the one who's a good person but always seems to find trouble? (My brother had some years like that.) You just wish Uncle Joe or cousin Millie would live up to their potential. You just wish they’d stop making bad choices, sabotaging themselves, and hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Lot seems to be that relative for our patriarch Abraham. He’s a good guy. He wants to do right by God. He really tries but somehow he always finds trouble.

***

So, before our reading begins today, Abraham is walking with God and God’s two messengers -- the NRSV describes them as angels --though that’s not a perfect translation. Messenger, still not a perfect translation, seems to fit their role in this story better. 

Now, this is after God's bombshell visit to Hebron, a visit in which the righteousness of Abraham and Sarah is evident in their hospitality. This is immediately after that bombshell visit in which God tells Abraham and Sarah that, despite Sarah’s old age, she’s going to have a baby.

So God, perhaps sensitive to the enormity of the news just dropped on the elderly Abraham, debates whether to discuss with him what’s next on the agenda. Ultimately, though, God decides, to tell Abraham. “I must go down” to Sodom, God tells Abraham, “and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18: 21 NRSV)

I can imagine Abraham rolling his eyes. I would if I were him. Not out of disrespect to God but because Lot had found trouble...again. Lot has fallen in with a bad crowd. He’s moved to the plains, to Sodom. That place that, according to Ezekiel 16, had “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things.” (Ezekiel 16: 49b-50a NRSV)

Abraham intercedes on Lot’s behalf. He barters with God, what if there are 50 good men, will you save the towns? Of course, Abraham probably expects God to offer a higher number. Maybe 100 good men? As some commentators have suggested, however, God surprises even Abraham with his mercy. 

God does not want to punish the righteous with the wicked. 

***

And so we arrive in Sodom in the evening along with God’s messengers. What happens next is familiar in our culture, at least vaguely. Even if you’ve never read Genesis, you’ve probably heard about Sodom and Gomorrah. As told in secular and in many church settings, this is the story of a God who punishes two cities because of their evil ways. 

God gives up on their ability to change or transform. Evil now, evil always. No resurrections. 

In this interpretation God rains fire on Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexual acts. This ferocious god -- fed up by the disobedience of the townsfolk -- saved Lot and his two daughters only because Abraham interceded on their behalf. As a result of this we even use the term sodomy and Sodomite to refer to a kind of sexual behavior and those who engage in it.

Of course, the problem with allowing the secular culture to interpret the Bible for us is that we miss the nuance. We miss hearing God’s loving voice. We fail to allow the Holy Spirit to envelope us and guide us. Our sacred text must be read and studied prayerfully or we will be led astray. 

Perhaps even turning its meaning on its head.

***

Imagine Lot...

I remember that evening well. The sun was setting when I noticed the two men near the town gate. Why had no one offered to put these strangers up for the night?  

Well, I know what my kin Abraham would do; he would offer hospitality.  Like Abraham, I love our Lord, the maker of all that we see, the one who led our people out of Egypt, the one worthy of our worship. 

And, so, I did what my God requires, I approached the two strangers and offered to put them up for the night. At first they hesitated but I insisted. They were strangers and didn’t know how hostile this town could be to those from the outside. As an immigrant myself, a resident alien with some rights, they still reminded me from time to time when I got too “uppity” that I wasn’t “from around here.” 

So, I brought the strangers home and made them a feast! We were lingering over coffee and my wife’s famous cherry pie when I heard the commotion outside. There were so many of them! Sounded like the whole town. They called to me, “Lot! Lot! LO-OT!”  They were getting louder. 

“Give us those strangers! They don’t belong here. They probably don't even speak English!" I feared they wanted to dehumanize my guests...rape them...treat them as women. I hoped my guests had not heard their hateful words because it was my job as host to protect my guests.

I went to the door. My guests followed and closed the door behind me. I stood on the front stoop and looked at the townsfolk. They were ticked --  no, worse than that -- they were in a frenzy of hatred and hostility. Some of ‘em had been drinking. It really was the whole town at my door. 

So, I put on my most charming voice, my most respectful voice,“I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly,” I said. And, though I'm ashamed to admit it, I offered them my daughters. It was horrible to do so, but I am under an oath sworn to God to protect the vulnerable, the stranger. Hospitality is just that important.

Fortunately for my daughters, the townsfolk were too intent on the foreigners to take me up on the offer. They weren’t trying to satiate their sexual desires; they wanted to inflict their evil on the outsiders!  And now I had just enraged them even more. 


They reminded me that I wasn’t one of them, either -- that I was an alien, an immigrant --and they were prepared to do even worse to me! 

I had failed in my duties of hospitality when the two men had to protect me. They pulled me inside and -- somehow? -- blinded all of the wicked townspeople so that they could not find the door.

***

I don’t know about you but I get angry when our sacred text is used as a weapon. The Bible is a powerful testament of our ancient kindred’s experience of the Divine. When it is used for hatred, stumbling blocks are put before people. 

Recent surveys have shown that those under 30 associate Christianity with hatred. Is it really any wonder... when we let the media and the secular culture define us and interpret Jesus? Jesus: our upside down savior? We let the voice of abundant love that overcomes death be drowned out by those who don't study the Bible prayerfully and thoughtfully.

According to the U.S. Religion Census released on May first, Portland -- our Portland -- is the least religious city in the country. Religious is defined as having an affiliation, even marginally, with a religious body of some kind. Only 32% of Portlanders are connected to a church, mosque, or synagogue. We’re not much better. In Hood River County only 38.4% of people are associated -- even slightly -- with a religious body. 

We're failing to teach the loving core of our faith. We're failing to teach the Bible and make it relevant to the twenty-first century. We've allowed the secular culture to limit God’s extravagant love. In the case of the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we’ve allowed others to tell people that it is a story of punishment for homosexuality. 

It is not. 

This is a story that reveals the truth about the importance of hospitality to the stranger, to those who are not like us. As Disciple scholar Rick Lowery puts it, this narrative is a reminder that, “When you declare war on the poor and the vulnerable, you declare war on YHWH,” on God. We should all be appalled that one of the stories of our faith has been used for hatred when it is about the importance of love. When it is about radical hospitality.

Jesus himself referred to the meaning of this story in the tenth chapter of Matthew. As he sent the apostles out to teach, Jesus said, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.” (Matthew 10: 14-15 NRSV)

*** 

College came and I went away to school. On my weekends home from college, our friends would still gather. And Bill and I would still end the evening in his driveway.

It was in Bill’s driveway that he told me about the girls he dated, and how it never seemed to last. It was in Bill’s driveway that I first told him about the girl in the college cafeteria. The one with whom I flirted -- religiously -- after every meal. It was in his driveway that I would later ask him to be my best man.

One weekend home from college we pulled into Bill’s driveway. This night, Bill stammered and hesitated. His nervousness -- his fear? -- filled the car. Eventually, he got out what he wanted to say to me. Bill came out to me. My best friend told me he was gay.

It’s not that I didn’t care, it’s just that a best friend’s love is unconditional. It didn’t matter to our friendship. 

It’s not that I didn’t care, it’s just that I grew up in the church. Heck, I was born in the Disciples of Christ’s Vatican City. I was ushered into life in Indianapolis where my dad served Speedway Christian Church.

I threw paper airplanes made from church bulletins off the balcony at First Christian Church in Salem. I went on hay rides on a Missouri farm with the youth group. I went with my grandfather -- who wore his perfect attendance pin -- to the Disciple church in Irvine, Kentucky. I gave my Good Confession at a storefront Disciples church on Palm Sunday because I know a god who loves all of God’s people extravagantly. 

And, so, I accepted my friend for who he was because that is what Jesus taught me.

AMEN.

Year-End Reflection: Leading the Malleable Life Amid Hurricane-Force Winds

The Malleable Life


A new friend recently described my life as malleable. I didn't like her choice of words because malleable connotes being beholden to outside influences. So, to prove her wrong, I looked it up in a couple dictionaries. I proved myself wrong.


Malleable refers to a material that can be bent "without breaking or cracking" (1). It can also be something that has "a capacity for adaptive change" (2). It turns out that my friend was right. 

Mt. Hood as seen from 
Portland, Oregon

I've found the malleable life the best response to the constantly blowing winds of living. Without adaptive change, it is easy to buckle or become disheveled by breezes and gusts from all directions. When that constantly blowing wind is  "the very breath of God" (3), adapting is the only option. 


Over the last four-years, and especially the last 18-months, "the very breath of God" has become a hurricane force wind. You see, I had a "Holy Spirit moment" in the summer of 2010 that precipitated our move to Portland (4). This spiritual moment was clear, powerful, and provided a specific message. The message was one word: Portland. It came after multiple days of heavy duty praying for direction.


Intuitive Faith & Rationality

Acting intuitively in faith, my wife and I spent the next year preparing for the move. We gave up all our possessions except for what fit in two cars (5). We sold our 3-bedroom home and moved 2700-miles into a 250 square foot studio apartment.


I did the rational things, too. I worked through the denominational materials for discerning new church ministry. I studied about Portland and target demographics. The impetus for and the foundation of this radical move, however, has always rested upon that one moment at the Lord's Table when I experienced God nudging me to the Northwest.




The Continuously Creative Divine Breath of God

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert. 

Isaiah 43: 19 NRSV

The Columbia River Gorge
near Hood River.

Here is the crux of my problem, confusion, and doubts: God is challenging my assumptions again. Amid the hurricane-force winds of the Divine breath, I have longed for rationality and linear faith. My malleability was reaching its limits. Though that "Holy Spirit moment" in the summer of 2010 was specific, my wife has just accepted a chaplain ministry 65-miles away in the Columbia River Gorge. 


How could I find myself facing another change that did not include Portland? My discernment, though lacking clarity at times, has always included the Rose City. Though I have continued to trust the Divine lure, patiently awaiting as the layers of the onion peel away slowly (6), I have believed geography was now settled. 


But, faith is not a linear or even terribly rational process.


The Vast Wilderness Spanning a Continent


Leaving the wilderness of my last few years I arrived in Portland to find more wilderness. I've perceived and heeded calls to places I didn't want to be. My patience with taking only enough manna for the day has been challenged. (7) I've simultaneously longed for and rejected financial security. Despite craving a specific job, I heeded the blowing winds, chose the malleable life, and turned it down so that I might heed the Divine claim on my life.


And then the Divine challenged even my assumptions about Portland. Maggie's new job answers many of our personal challenges as one year ends and a new one begins. It also creates its own problems. In recent weeks I have been desperately clinging to old and narrow ways of thinking as God's hurricane-force winds blew over me. I have agonized.


At first we thought my wife could just commute. As we reflected on it more and more that seemed like a less and less ideal situation for her ministry. But wasn't my "Holy Spirit moment" specific about Portland? I would think I had answered my doubts only to have them re-emerge. Pity my wife as I would say, "I feel better now" only to agonize verbally a few hours later. It was time for some alone time with God.




Time Alone with the Divine: Letting Go of an Image

Interfaith Guild of Chaplains at
 #OccupyThanksgiving

I burned incense, I prayed, I played music, read, and lit candles. Finally, with a rested mind, heart, and body I could perceive the Spirit's presence responding to my doubts. I first had to let go of my idolatry of Portland. Yes, the Spirit called me here but my stubborn refusal to see other options kept me from seeing the big picture. 


Once I admitted my grief that I might be being called out of the Rose City, the winds calmed. The warm, loving embrace of God's healing breath engulfed me. Using my theology as a tool to interpret and understand my situation, I realized I don't have to give up Portland. My ministry with the Interfaith Guild of Chaplains at Occupy Portland is not coming to a close. It is transforming. 


Given Maggie's new job, the most loving response to her, and to a sustainable lifestyle, is for us to move to the Columbia River Gorge. Once I accepted this, all the wrong-think dissipated. Where once I could only see hurricanes, I am glimpsing healing winds. I can see more time in ministry and less in earning a dollar.


I am not being called to leave Portland or my ministry here. Instead of perceiving Portland literalistic, I can see it in a broader way. My ministry can be regional: in the city and in the Columbia River Gorge. (I mean if Craigslist.com includes the Gorge on its Portland website, why can't I?) For me to spend an hour and fifteen minutes driving to Portland two or three days a week is much more do-able than my wife commuting daily. 


My humanly-constructed image of my ministry, was limiting my openness to where I am being lured. How my Occupy ministry and my new "church" plant evolve into the new thing springing forth, I don't know. I don't have to know. I simply have to trust, listen, and respond in love to the gentle breeze of God.


Ever-Creating God,


As we leave one year,
    and begin another I pause to be with You.


You bless me with Your patience when,
   when I doubt,
   allowing my bigotry to closes me off from others,
   and to think too narrowly.


Though I perceive a hurricane, 
   Your breath heals and nurtures me.


Thank you for Your breath,
   that envelopes me, 
   nurtures me,
   and persists when I see gale-force winds.


Help me to be open to Your call,
   in all its fluidity,
   in all its broadness,
   and all its creative, extravagant lovingness.


Remind me when I doubt,
   that you are with me,
   embracing me with your loving arms,
   whispering to me as the breeze blows,
   revealing the most loving path in the eyes of others.
   
Remind me that I have the opportunity to reflect your extravagant love,
   in each moment,
   in each day,
   to each person, animal, and plant.


Amen.


Footnotes
(1) New Oxford American Dictionary
(2) Merriam-Webster Dictionary
(3) Read the first portion of "A Theology" for an understanding how "the very breath of God" is related to wind.
(4) I write about my "Holy Spirit moment" in "Being."
(5) I describe the experience of giving up most of our possessions in "Emptying Barns at One Year."  
(6) To understand the reference to peeling onions further, read "Onion Peels on the Treadmill."
(7) Read "Whining for Manna".

"Well, Maybe Tim Can Eat It"

"Well, maybe Tim can eat it." 


My wife frequently hears this line from others as she is handed a gift that she cannot eat because of dietary restrictions. She's always courteous, appreciative, and smiles as she thanks the well-meaning individual. (This is an example of how she's a better person than I am.)


Oh, I get when people who don't know about her dietary restrictions give her something she cannot eat. What I don't understand is the people who know and still give her gifts she has to immediately re-gift to me. If it is the thought that counts, the giver who knows, and still gives this kind of gift, has utterly failed. 


It seems to me that the "thought" is "I am giving everyone gifts but I'm not thinking about the individuals to whom I am giving." In this case, that person not being considered is my wife. 


"Well, maybe Tim can eat it."


Just as my wife is not considered by the knowing gift-giver, children are too often viewed as objects of our actions rather than as people worthy of our consideration. Particularly at this time of year children are the focus of retailers' marketing campaigns. Children are manipulated into whining for that toy that from which retailers and corporations seek to profit. If the children recruited by advertisers are not persuasive enough, the ad campaign is focused directly at parents. Giving the desired gift to your child will prove your worth as a parent. It will buy your child's love. It will alleviate your guilt.


The impact of this for adults who can afford the primo gift is often debt and temporary release of guilt. Unfortunately, those families who cannot afford to purchase the prized item, feel even more guilty. 


"Well, maybe the corporations can profit from it."


Too many twenty-first century Christians give the message that in order to receive the gift of God's love, one must meet specific requirements. You must be straight, preferably white. Being male also supposedly brings you closer to God's favor. 

Some Christians even espouse a theology of wealth. In other words,  God rewards the worthy with earthly wealth. In this human-constructed theology, white men especially those among the one-percent, are the most beloved by God. Why else would they be the most powerful in our culture? Why else would Congress argue over unemployment benefits, payroll tax deductions for the middle class, and food benefits for the poor while extending "temporary" tax cuts for the wealthiest among us? Why else would we have millions of people, many of them veterans, living on the street while politicians receive huge sums of money for their campaigns from corporate interests?


"Well, at least the 1% can have a government that serves their interests."

Another Way

In the Christmas narratives found in the biblical text, we learn that the infant Jesus was born to a poor family. We learn from the Luke story that the specialness of the infant was apparent to shepherds, the poor. In Matthew's gospel we learn that even the wealthy (the Magi) recognized the importance of the one who was to be called Messiah.


In the biblical stories, an adult Jesus shows an affinity for the poor and other outcasts of his ancient society. He taught about the importance of giving others that which they need: healing, hope, and food. In short, Jesus practiced radically loving, gracious hospitality. He and his disciples even relied on the hospitality of strangers as they traveled teaching and spreading what would later be called the Good News. That Good News is that God loves all of us extravagantly whether we can eat sugar or not, whether we can afford the latest toy for our child or not, and whether we are employed or have a home or not.


In our culture, we give too much to those who already have too much. We give leftovers to those who are without. We argue whether others are worthy of receiving food stamps suggesting they must take drug tests to prove their worth. We don't give the beggar on the street corner a dollar because they might misuse it while we throw away money on the latest gadget.


As a country, we send the riot squads into parks to remove Occupy protesters who dare to point out the economic injustice rampant in our culture. We tolerate Wall Street crime and nine years of pre-emptive war in Iraq while becoming angry that a park is occupied by those who don't necessarily look like us. We allow our police to round up the houseless to keep them from sleeping in a public space when our cities have a shortage of shelters.


Jesus healed without condition. He offered hope and a new path to the newly healed. Jesus did not require a urinalysis before sitting down with the outcast for a meal. Jesus gave up his life preaching the Good News that all of us are loved by God. Jesus gave up his life threatening the status quo by looking into the eyes of others regardless of their stock portfolio. Within each of us is the spark of the Divine. 


Each of us deserve the dignity of being considered. As we head into the Christian celebration of Christ's birth, may we each reflect the Divine presence for one another. If we give a physical gift, may it be made or purchased with the receiver's needs in mind. (Yes, that means don't give a sugar cookie to a diabetic.) More importantly, may we respond to the need that each of us has to be recognized as the amazing, wonderful person we were lovingly created to be. May we give of ourselves in presence, in listening, and in loving one another. 




God of Extravagant Love & Patience,


Encourage us to seek you,
   in all whom we meet.


Cause us to be generous,
   as we give of ourselves,
   the best of ourselves, 
   and as we share material gifts.


May we be the people you call us to be,
   as we respond to your love,
   with healing kindness,
   with a humble spirit seeking justice for your world.


With your loving guidance,
   may we one day live as the one-hundred percent.


May we mutually respect and love one another,
   that one day we all embrace our interconnectedness, 
   sharing the abundance you have provided among us.

Amen.

Prayer & Change

“God works with the world as it is in order to bring it to where it can be. Prayer changes the way the world is, and therefore changes what the world can be. Prayer opens the world to its own transformation.”

― Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God's Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer

A Tweet Turned "Prayer for Today"

My experience of #God is like a 6th sense. It's as real as the ground I walk on, the air I breathe, & my wife's loving embrace.


 I experience #God in the tears of "Aha!" & the tears of sad & joy. God is in the connections between, in the people I meet everyday.


 I experience #God in the nagging push to respond in love to everyone I meet. Never giving up on me, God insists I love.


 ‎#God of extravagant, boundless, indescribable love: may I let go of my false images of you, let your love wash over me…


…& may I breathe you into my lungs & breathe out your love in my every action, in my every interaction. May your love flow thru me. Amen.

Ignoring Jesus & Injustice

A recent communication about the Occupy movement, between a woman and her pastor, continues to nag at me. This private communication was shared with me by the woman. I write about it with her explicit permission. I am disturbed by the tone of the response from the pastor. 

Photo by Mark Colman, retrieved from: http://markcolman.tv/?p=938

The woman asked if her church would be willing to get involved in helping its local Occupy movement. The pastor's response was an unequivocal no. The pastor's explanation for why the church would not be helping the local Occupy included an expression of the sins (my word) of the movement. Each of the sins related to destruction of property. The pastor said the campers had destroyed the grass at the former site of the Occupation. The pastor repeated a report of an individual who had vandalized an ATM machine. The pastor listed other sins of the occupiers. They all related to property and disruption of the status quo.


As a minister of the gospel, I am disturbed by this response. If each of the sins the pastor listed were accurate, which is arguable and unclear, they still only represent actions of a minority of the Occupiers. Even if we assume that the destructive actions were perpetrated by a sizable number of Occupiers, the pastor's response is disturbing.


The Occupy movement is diverse. It is made up of people from multiple social strata but it has a large number of marginalized people in its number. In the local Occupy, the homeless, the mentally ill, and unemployed were particularly attracted to the Occupy campsite. As long as the middle class members were the most visible, the mainstream media, the government, and the general public were extremely tolerant of the disruption created by the occupation of two city parks. Once the media began talking about the mentally ill and homeless who had made homes at the encampment, the days of tolerance were numbered. I am not surprised by this bigotry. However, I am appalled that a minister of the gospel would reflect this intolerance in response to a parishioner.


As followers of Jesus, of the One who breathed in the Divine and breathed out love to all, we must strive to emulate Christ's actions.  The Church must never--EVER--write off anyone. (Admittedly, it has and does too often.) 


The Christian faith is about relating to all people in love. Our faith is about engaging--even those who act in reprehensible ways--in love and forgiveness. We are called to mirror the resurrection in our relationships. When this pastor focused on the arguably destructiveness of a few while ignoring the economic injustice that has brought people to the streets, Jesus was ignored. 


Justice Seeking God,


Lay on our hearts the willingness to let go of things,
  and be generous to those who need.


When we perceive sins in others,
  cause us to question the context of the sin.


Help us to see where our participation in sinful systems of oppression,
  are part of the problem.


Ignite in us a desire to engage, 
  to relate with,
  and to see You in every human being.


Ignite in us the strength and will,
  to be your loving arms and hands of justice,
  even when it makes us uncomfortable, 
  even when it is easier to blame the victims.


AMEN