Prophetic shadows

This is the third iteration of this post and while I'm tired and a bit frustrated to get to this point, I'm also thankful that the Lord pushes us through the tedious to get to something better.

Some things of late that are burning in me:

• God is bigger than me and while I say these words, they reflect realities I can not imagine
• Revelation is universal. Jesus is universal. Yet I am Existentially responsible for the human I become and how I will respond to God's love
  
• Humanity has an affinity to law. Religion attempts to bridge proper living (AKA law) with interactions with God that are beyond religious description. Religion is not evil and spirituality good. Rather both are more a means of history, reflecting important elements that others have found helpful. Religion/spirituality is our snapshot of God's intervention. It has value, but the further we get from the source, the more distortive it can become
  
• We can find points of history that tell us what we want to hear about God and we can reject tradition to the exclusion of God. History and tradition are not monolithic - they are tinkered, reconceived, used for glorious and evil ends. They must be handled with care and respect, not to the point of cynicism and not to the point of unadulterated acceptance
  
• The Bible is an amazing description and sacred illumination to the redemptive history that started prior to it and continues beyond it
• In Jesus those elements of faith that were revelatory of God through ancient understandings continue their life. Through Jesus all contemporary faith statements become scrutinized and have their life
  
• Our propensity for law distances us from God while God offers a life in the Spirit where we must take responsibility for our choices through our conscience
• We need religious expression because to get beyond religion in most cases is to become self-consumed. To worship often requires a context provided beautifully by religion. God interacts and we respond. Unfortunately, he is often responding freshly while we are dogmatizing the latter experience
• We must recognize that religion has a built-in motivation for self-preservation that often supersedes truthfulness when faithful judgment on it is harsh. It becomes a life that sometimes is the means for salvation and other times hinders God's work. The work of the prophetic is to provide God's judgment and allow for disillusionment and renewed life with different/better conceptions of God at the time
• God is beyond good and evil. He stepped through chaos to create order. Somehow this plays a part in our understanding of who he is. He cannot be domesticated
  
• Somehow God is involved in societal culture. There is a thread of the church in culture as there is a strand of culture within those who believe. Our separation of church and state (which has been mutually beneficial to both) is artificial, but the alternative is not a nation of anti-abortion laws, prayer in school, and the 10 commandments in court houses. It is a people where their conscience is shaped by the Spirit, the work of their hands is the ministry, and love is not part of a priority list it has become their existence through intuition and action
  
• If believers refuse to hear the Spirit and continue to preserve religion as an effort to benefit God without his involvement, he will use others who are able to hear. God is not more concerned about Christianity's success over Islam. Rather he is concerned that salvation in his terms is experienced through Christ
  
• Art, human love, music, poetry, and expressions of meritless kindness give humanity a starting point to understand God's grace. To be born again is to throw away preconceptions on the important things in life and let Christ mold us as a baby learns language, trust, and love in union with mom
  

Some of this probably sounds New Age-y. Tomorrow, with fresh eyes, I might be greatly embarrassed or not able to remember a bit about why I wrote a particular sentence (though it seems so self-evident now).

Good night and blessings...

God's love, dreams, and doing

I came across the following quote from Stephen Leacock in Fletcher's book. It got me thinking about my friend and her daughter the spit fire.

It may be those who do most dream most.

I think this is so true. As a follower of Christ, I find myself in constant doubt. It ebbs and flows. Its character is not about the existence of God nor fundamentally the beautiful things about him, but it is distancing nonetheless. But when I meet those who have settled better the love of God in their life (he is for them, not manipulative or destructive, but for them and loves them), the natural result seems to be a freedom to dream. These then are the same people who do extraordinary things. They don't look at a house and spend extra time contemplating on whether God wants them to have it because they wonder where they are in his love. They have developed a strong intuition of the Spirit. They feel very comfortable hearing his voice and moving. Or perhaps they feel that if they were to make a mistake in trying to follow God's steps that his grace is still bigger than the circumstance. This last sentence may really be hitting on something for me.

I also like the order this quote uses. It is approachable, and allows us all to be dreamers. To do leads to dreaming. Dreaming is the Existential result of a life of good doing. Out of the simple commitments done well come cosmic changes...

The Kingdom and the kids

I've just been a blogging fool this morning, but I've got one more in me. I woke up thinking about friends' kids. The oldest has many talents. He loves Jesus and it comes out in his art, the way he approaches soccer, and how he interacts in the store. He often gives his parents Kingdom insights. There is no disconnect between sacred and secular for him. He is consistent in his worship and action. The middle daughter is loving. She has to be one of the most hospitable people I've ever met (she gets this from her mom). She will bring you into her world and make you feel like you are a king. Look here's her favorite book and there is where she wants to sit with you and have a conversation. She will gaze into your eyes and it chokes you up, she is just so amazing. The youngest is a spit fire. I suspect she will be like her dad in being able to see what she wants and having the tenacity to get it done. When your life is caked in God, this vision and desire warms the Lord's heart, "Do extraordinary things, it's OK that's where I am at as well." And when she smiles you have to chuckle.

So, I awoke with a smile this morning. A group of great kids, each living out the Kingdom of God as they are supposed to. They are blessed to live under the influence of amazing parents and they bless people from across the country. A forth is on the way. I can't wait to see the part God has for him to play!

Beauty needs lines

I was flipping through the Fletcher book this morning and this quote took up a whole page:

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
- G.K. Chesterton

What an interesting idea to meditate on.

Commencement

Twice a year I wear a cap and gown. Tonight is one of those events, Commencement. And I have to admit the College does an amazing job with it. Students will gather 4:30-ish in a huge torazo-floored lobby. It's beautiful with a large spiral stair case. They will then march through a large court yard and as they round their way through the separation between the buildings, they see this vast expanse that comes to a bowl with a band shell at the locus. Throughout this grassy concave will be family and friends on beach towels and blankets enjoying the sun, eating, and having a great time. They will hear bag pipes playing and see a large contingent of officials on the platform; there to honor them. The hair on the back of their necks will rise as will their pulse. We'll be celebrating.

Tonight's address will be from Dr. Braithwaite. He wrote To Sir with Love which is about his life as a teacher in England. He has been at the College on and off throughout the year; visiting classes, lecturing, etc. I had the privledge of sitting in on a discussion on the philosophy of education that he gave. He is quite passionate and doesn't let faculty sit in the victim's seat too long. I suspect that generally he holds them accountable for classroom success regardless of the obstacles. Perhaps he's just from that old school generation, or perhaps he has wisdom. Being that I'm on the dark side (administration), I'm not sure.

Graduation is where I realize my job has meaning. All the politics and crazy deadlines. The millions of dollars of technology that just never seems enough and the endless support that isn't quite good enough. But today hundreds of people will have benefited from the silent work of my staff and me. Without us they could not have been successful. We provided the tools for registration, to learn programming, to become proficient in medical billing, to see PowerPoint lectures, to research the Internet, to be able to call professors in a panic and get reassurance that they would be just fine. They will be going on to UCONN, getting a job in criminal justice, pursuing Yale, or just getting that AA in art because it felt right. There will be single moms who will have credentials to support their families. There will be kids that were forced to grow up just a little more to be successful in the military, the workplace, or anywhere else life might take them.

My Republican-Libertarian ideals are challenged by these liberal pragmatics and I just let it be. I rejoice with those who rejoice. I know pride isn't a pretty color, but sometimes it's nice to reflect on the good.

Self-success and quality

I had a conversation with my boss the other day in which he wanted to coach me on a particular decision. It felt too controlled to him. We had a great conversation and I think he came up with an interesting insight that I'm not sure what to do with. For him my motivations, vision, etc. are bang-on, but my personality is intense, quality-driven and this shuts down the vision.

For example, I want to see my staff able to develop visions for their areas, be accountable, and yet not be afraid to make mistakes. These are the words and passion I have expressed to them for years. At the same time, I want the outcomes to be amazing and can not handle the disconnect between coaching a person to be successful through their failures to at some point be amazing. In the quest for quality, and the extraordinary, my staff probably feel like things.

A point to ponder...

Servant-y, leadership-y thing

Over the last few years I think some of the directions in leadership have been off a little. For example in my mind "leadership" is cool, "management" is bad, and "following" isn't part of the equation. As I've been listening to Stephen Covey's The Eighth Habit, I think a healthier approach is that all people should inhabit all of these elements, but that different roles require a different ratios. Below are my thoughts on the pieces:

• Leadership - the influence of oneself and of those around you to a vision beyond you. It is purely about people. Taking responsibility for your being and then influencing those around you through the fruit of the Spirit. Influence is not manipulation, but rather helping others participate in the roles that passion, skill, and Godly direction have emerged
  
• Management - stewardship of tangibles. Resources, money, schedules/time, facilities, etc. all need to be administered. The details are no less important than the vision
  
• Following - allowing oneself to be influenced, to be humbled, to submit to works and visions bigger than one's own. To stay in proper relationship with Christ. To submit to others for any number of reasons, one of which is because that is how honest communities work
  

The definitions are not perfect, but could you imagine a Body in which every person was taught how to engage their world through these? The Janitor who has a simple vision for people in an organization and starts praying. He holds the door open for people out of his way. He smiles while walking down the hall. He influences to the benefit of the Kingdom of God. Then he takes seriously using his money for purposes that expand the Kingdom. There isn't much, but each dollar is used with intention and has today and eternity in mind. He is a pleasure to lead taking care of business beyond what is appropriate and recognizes that all leaders are following someone or something. He will not be manipulated, but will listen to his wife say the same thing she has said a million times and hear something a little different. He will submit to her for no other reason than he loves her and wants her to understand it.

"Son" and Paris

Sometimes I make things too complicated. Yesterday I was reading something about the final judgment and what the ultimate criteria would be. For the author it was simply being a child of God. Full stop. I know you can't stop too long and linger before questions like, "Must I accept this status or is it birthed outside of my control?" "What is it to be a good child?" "Why is struggle and pain part of this childhood?" But in the end, all the theology and philosophy must give way to a childlikeness that is more powerful and on occasion tangible: God loves me and titles me his son. And this surely can be enough.

Here's my little sister in Paris!

Beyond experience

What if all acts of creativity were in the realm of the Holy Spirit? Is this commonality something that allows for a bridge with an unbeliever? We discount the movement and emotion that comes with looking at art or reading a poem when it is not written by a "known" Christian, but perhaps this slaps God. I wonder if it fits with other pieces of our image of God that allows someone to sense the Spirit's tugging. Why in seeing a Rembrandt and being moved as deeply within me as a church worship service do I dismiss the Spirit?

I've been skimming through Alan Fletcher's book The Art of Looking Sideways and he talks about creativity only being true creativity when it gets beyond experience. If the act lacks this component it is probably more along the lines of "process becomes product." This reminded me of Thomas Merton's understanding of meditation. To take something that I have studied and get beyond myself in terms of knowledge, insight, expectation, etc. Where it is God's insights that provide the lattice of understanding beyond my imagination. Probably only possible when the leap starts for faith.

Some interesting quotes from Fletcher's book:

Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain and gaining new and wider views.
- Albert Einstein

I want to link creativity with something known as serendipity, which means to find something that you haven't been looking for but which changes everything that went before and comes after. [to be] surprised...
- Robert Grudin

Creativity... involves the power to originate, to break away from existing ways of looking at things, to move freely in the realm of the imagination, to create and re-create worlds fully in one's mind - while supervising all this with a critical inner eye. Creativity has to do with inner life - with the flow of new ideas and strong feelings.
- Oliver Sachs

It is not hunger, but love and fear, and sometimes wonder, that make us create... to give poetic form to the pragmatic.
- Emilio Ambasz

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.
- Arthur Koestler

Paris

My little sister is on an emersion trip to Paris and I saw The Da Vinci Code. I was thinking this afternoon that I so hope her experiences and love for God are so much more than mine. I love that "kid."

Perspectives and the past

A couple of years ago I went out many times with a really neat, beautiful women. She loved God, was on her way to becoming a medical doctor, was physically so beautiful that I would stutter or find my breath would become shallow when seeing her across the room, and she sculpted her life on how she experienced God moving in it.

Her dad asked me to film her sister's wedding with the condition and "favor" that I be his other daughter's date. That was the first that extended through the summer. I had myself a little crush, you might say.

But by the end of the summer I had found that I had completely misread her. She had not liked me at all. I then redefined "our" history. We had done things together, but as friends. Those gestures, the amazing walk on the beach talking and appreciating what God had done in the full moon, the focus and gaze she would give me when I talked, and the laughter hadn't meant any more than moments of happiness. For me they were testing the water for a deeper relationship, but for her they could have been with anyone and just happened to be me. Rather than casting a shadow on her, it was how far I felt I had misunderstood. And as the summer, and the relationship, came to an end, I realized I had actually produced some frustration for her that I never knew. I was that guy who was difficult to get rid of. Ouch!

It bothered me that I had had such a different perspective of that time. I felt bad that in the end she had no feelings for me and for whatever reason could not express that. But, today, her mom introduced me to someone as "..., you know, he dated (my daughter)..." She smiled widely and spoke as it were a matter of fact and a nice piece of our history. I was appreciative that my perspective wasn't completely off. I know it doesn't mean as much as the space I've devoted, but sometimes a person can spend a lot of time redefining the past.

Disillusionment with operating systems

I love Apple. My computers since college have been Apples. I recently bought a Mac Mini. It is small and beautiful. But, its operating system is as unstable and frustrating as anything I've experienced with Windows. When I was a System Administrator for an HP-UX (UNIX) mini-computer they recognized that the OS was never perfect. Every month they provided updates. Windows produces updates that destroy their own products and now Apple has provided a security update that renders its OS almost so unstable that it can't be used.

The message is not that Apple is now evil and Windows is good. The message is all operating systems are inherently limited. Get over it. I have.

Floating

Today I came across a "post-charismatic" movement/conversation/thing. I'm tired of "post-." It's meant to take into account the "pre" and then allow for movement beyond it, but it doesn't. Post-modernism is supposed to take those tenants that have stood the test of time and affirm them while rejecting the elements that have been found false. Instead its proponents dismiss all forms of certainty and don't see themselves as puppets of consumerism.

I feel like I'm floating. Frustrated with Evangelical cliche's that have been given godly precedence and frustrated with suspicion. Today a friend from church said, "Gays, yah, I mean I don't want to kill 'em or anything." That is a Jesus response to him. He loves God and I refuse to deny him that. Then the Emergent Conversation talks about the evils of creeds and faith statements. Meanwhile they yield commentary after commentary of how the rest are getting it wrong. And somehow I have this sense that there should be a pure, perfect response to Christianity that rises above this. Hence, I float.

It would be nice to pretend that floating were the answer. But there is no life in floating. Today I went to a wake for a friend whose sister died young of cancer. I could suspend frustration on our preoccupation with homosexuality as a sin and looking the other way in gossip and false prophesy; I could suspend frustration on silly attempts at rejecting the summarization of faith even though those who reject it do it most; but I have to land on this. You can't float and obey. You can't float and grieve with those who grieve. You can't float and be involved in incarnational life changes and quantum restoration. You can't float and love...

The Edge

There is a cost to edginess. Unpredictable fractures and juts can inflict pain. Looking for non-conformity to comfort is a bit like asking anarchy to bestow civility. Count the cost, it's not always worth it, but sometimes...

New rosary and angst

Today (technically yesterday now) I felt compelled to create a new prayer rosary. It has three sections: Loving God, Fruit of the Spirit, Things to Think About. I hope it will help deflect my self-centeredness and related angst.

Happy mother's day

From the bottom of my heart, happy mother's day!

Certainty and healing

Sometimes I wish I could come back to certainty. It's not gone, but I've lost confidence that I can capture it. This isn't necessarily bad and it's not certain either. But there was a time when in my relational emphasis of knowing Christ I translated Christianity into a formula. No baggage that I can recall, no devilish motives, but A+B=Christian. Ironically I would have gone to the mat in defending my ideal that there were no formulas to God, but that's part of life. We're always looking for the script, the steps, the signs, the means, the avenue to success. For the charismatic this is running to prophets and for the Evangelical it is reading the Bible like a maintenance manual. This is probably a good trait, generally. The object is to focus in on inadequacies of "A" or "B" and pump them up. But sometimes those with the strongest faith die horrific deaths and those with the most deprived, demonic expressions of being live abundantly. And yes, sometimes it seems that A+B=life to the full.

I raise this little paragraph of paradox because today I wondered how much of our experience is psychological and how much spiritual? Where does physical come into play? Are these categories a continuum of a common one? Today, I found my psyche being impacted by an event that happened 19 years ago. I've been melancholy and blue, not all of which fits nicely into this event. But today is the anniversary of the death of my mom. And I find on this anniversary, and her birthday, points where my being is impacted without my will. I often forget the calendar, holidays and birthdays many times become disconnected from my life, but even with this distance, the emotion consumes and I have an ah-ha that it's that season again.

Is the message of Christ that we will revert to a cleaner, more innocent time in our lives and from there live out healthy lives? Does he really promise that those abused will be unimpacted by that trauma in knowing him? What if life is unrepairable and the new creation makes use of the chaos and crap? As unknown, mystery, possibility, and yes uncertainty have taken more prominence in my life, I wonder if faith requires an object of belief. A+B=C. I wonder and in that wanderment I meet people who are certain of their healing, and I meet myself, fairly uncertain of it.