Theo-ology or Theo-poetics?

Broken hearts....

"Broken hearts are inevitable to anyone with a heart. The question is how will our hearts break? Will they break into pieces which are projected out like shrapnel to wound those who wounded us – a kind of emotional suicide bombing, if you will? Or will they break open – increasing our humility, our compassion, our empathy, our Christ-likeness?" -Parker Palmer

Abraham Joshua Heschel...on Where is God...?

"In a free society some are guilty...all are responsible."
-Abraham Heschel

"The response to the catastrophe is not to focus on the catastrophe; but to focus on human possibilities."
-A comment by Heschel's biographer reflecting on how Heschel processed the Holocaust and the loss of his family members.

I post these quotes and this nourishingly rich interview and biographical highlight of Abraham J. Heschel in light of the horror's taking place in Haiti. In a era when we are forced to hear the thoughts of lesser voices....my mind and heart are baptized afresh by such deep wisdom.

Moses & Jesus....

Not sure how much time I will have on Sunday to get into much of this stuff...but here are a few notes from my sermon prep on the "Messiah" that Simeon prophesied about in Luke 2:21-40. Israel was looking for a deliverer..a Savior like unto Moses. He did indeed come...and the similarities were amazing...yet, many failed to see and understand the "Exodus" He brought about...and that misunderstanding still exists today. May His kingdom come and His will be done...on Earth and its done in Heaven.

Both were protected from blood spilling child murders.

Both came into and out of Egypt.

Both confronted an oppressive empire.

Both were workers of miracles.

Both were opposed by religious priests.

Moses brought judgement on Egypt but salvation to Israel.

Jesus offered salvation to all....and will judge all.

Moses brought curses...Jesus brought life.

Both brought about the death of firstborns.

Both received treasures.

Both led an exodus.

Both brought new laws from a mountain.

Both instituted a sacrificial system of blood.

Both bring judgment.

Both led people into the wilderness.

Both baptized people through water.

Both brought food to those who couldn't feed themselves.

Both had their authority & teaching challenged by their own followers.

Both led people to the promised land.

Both men died and had followers who would continue the journey without them

Hey! Anonymous (C.L.H.) prophecy person....

Hey! Anonymous (C.L.H.) prophecy person....your "prophetic word" was a load of crap.

First and foremost because your description of me as a "Singularly Undefiled Person" shows me that you have not head the voice of God...because that surely isn't what God would say about me bozo.

And the subsequent word concerning the other person is so off base, I don't even know where to begin. If I had Samson's jawbone, Elijah's fire, Elisha's bear summoning power or Moses snake swallowing, Leprosy casting rod...I would use it. But instead, I will pray that you are delivered from your false prophetic ministry and brought to repentance by coming into the light and giving up your discouraging ministry of condemnation.

Anyone who writes letters with no return address, puts no name on the letter but initials and hasn't the guts to speak a 'word" to my face about someone else...shows themselves to be a spineless, coward.

Ridicule...with effect.

“What I have now done is only a little sport before the real combat. I have rather indicated the wounds that might be given you than inflicted any. If the reader has met with passages which have excited his risibility, he must ascribe this to the subjects themselves. There are many things which deserve to be held up in this way to ridicule and mockery, lest, by a serious refutation, we should attach a weight to them which they do not deserve. Nothing is more due to vanity than laughter; and it is the Truth properly that has a right to laugh, because she is cheerful, and to make sport of her enemies, because she is sure of the victory. Care must be taken, indeed, that the raillery is not too low, and unworthy of the truth; but, keeping this in view, when ridicule may be employed with effect, it is a duty to avail ourselves of it.” ... “To treat them seriously would be to sanction them.”
-Tertullian, (ca. 160 – ca. 220 AD)

The Contemplative (impulse)

Here is a video filmed in my art studio for a collaborative sermon project with Kaleo Church in Otis Orchards. Thanks to video and audio wizards: Mike McMullen & Jim Carney of Jacob's Well for enduring the cold to capture this on video. These types of projects represent the growing partnership that is taking place among us pastors through Ecclesia Spokane (Check it out on Facebook). I consider it a privilege to work with such amazing pastors, who are not only fellow workers in the region but are becoming great friends as well.

Quiet my soul...

"O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever. -King David (Psalms 131)

This is a gentle reminder that I must take advantage of the peace providing work of embracing God, as He embraces me in these times. A weaned child doesn't need the breast anymore but is still on the chest...out of love. Resting in Him, no matter what is or may come ahead. He is suffecient for all that we will face. He is the God who sleeps in storms. That's not indifference...it's a promise of a path of peace to walk upon in this earth. It's an invitation, a hint, a dare...to trust him so completely that we could chose slumber over panic.

I choose to quiet my soul today...He is able and willing to carry us.

Painting is "Mother & Child" by Gustav Klimt, 1905

KKK VS. the power of humor and love....

The repentant former KKK leader Johnny Lee Clary explains how Reverend Wade Watts, an NAACP leader, disarmed him by being cool, funny and brave, engaging in some first-rate psy-ops. Be sure to listen through to the end for the chicken story.
via BoinBoing

Exactly....

“Religion is, ‘I obey, therefore I’m accepted’.
The Gospel is, ‘I’m accepted through what Jesus Christ has done for me, therefore I obey’.
Religion gives you control, that’s why its so popular.
If I am saved by what I can do, then there’s a limit to what God can ask of me.
I still have some control.
But if I am saved by sheer grace, then there’s nothing He cannot ask of me”.
-Tim Keller

Sin....

One can look at sin from two sides...legal and relational.

The legal side is descriptive. It's clear and concise...injunctions are laid out, lists are made, prohibitions are clear and these are found easily within the pages of scripture in both old and new testaments. The Law and the prophets lay out sin and its consequences. From this clarity we see justice, wholeness, purity, perfection, godliness, the ideal, holiness, eternality, glory, light. From these passages we see the image of life as it should be.

The relational side is the spirit behind the law. We see that the clarity of showing sin among us, between us and in us...it has to do with relationships. Sin separates people relationally. There is a side of this that envelops the ideas presented in the NT that have to do with love. Connecting sin to love in phrases like... "That isn't very loving" becomes a relational compass that awakens one to the reality that what they are doing, even if it isn't clearly described somewhere is hurting someone or something and that means you are not loving them. That becomes sin. If one isn't truly walking in faith...for them, and that is the language the bible uses...is sin.

These two sides are one.

Learning to live in love and for the glory of God is a process. It requires learning about the holiness of God and coming to the realization of ones own fallenness. Which brings despair and hope. It involves one despairing of self and seeking the hope given by God, through God and is God...in Jesus Christ. We turn from self and embrace the Son; who becomes for us, salvation, healing, restoration, glorification, life and light. We are born in and through this and from this we grow. And a new life lived in and by the Spirit is entered and we learn to follow the nuances for this relational life.

Sin is present...in both the legal truth and the relational tensions.

Sin crucified the son of God...it's a serious issue. One we must wrestle with, understand, flee, confess, fear, reject and seek freedom from. But it's also a dissonance that should lead us to tune the dial until the music of heaven comes in clearer. An ugly sound within and without...is evidence of a out of tune life. Learning the notes of living...involves this issue of sin. But playing the music is the goal.

Some people who are born legalists or were raised with just light about the demands of holiness and not the remedy and beauty of it....always want to define things. Because they are consumed with being "right" and "good" and love is usually connected to these words to them.

Defining sin is often the evidence of a heart that is still maybe only seeing sin from one side of the coin.

Without the relational side...the legal side is exactingly objective.
With only the relational side of the coin...sin is merely subjective.

We need both sides....but the life of the Spirit...goes beyond these words...as one grows in love.

Soon the definitions becomes irrelevant because the life within, the knowledge of our Father, and the voice of the Holy Spirit and the renewed and reclaimed heart and mind...live in tempo, even with the presence of sin. Sin becomes the fascination and preoccupation of those who have only learned a life of turning from things...instead of the life of turning towards something...or better, Someone.

Turning from sin...is often the tale tell sign of the preoccupation of a Christ-less religion.

Law is a picture of a child reaching out his or her hand...and their Father not reaching back.
Grace is a Father reaching out His hand...and embracing the child's hand.

What picture one sees....will determine the quality and enjoyment of the faith journey.


"Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action." -Cyril Connolly

"It takes the same grace of God to save the most respectable person in the world as (it does) the most lawless person in the world" (Martin Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression).

"Sin is whatever obscures the soul."
Gide, Andre

"He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil."

"God has reserved the time of full cleansing of his people, for another world. Christ could cleanse His people presently from all their spots if He desired. Surely, this is the case. But because they are to live in this world for now, Christ sees that it would not benefit them to be wholly cleansed from sin now and live in a sinful world. This world is not worthy of the saints. Even if you consider them with all their infirmities, still, the world is not worthy of them. Yet it is not for the world to have the saints live here without their spots. If the world is offended that Christians have their spots. then let them be offended. Let Christians be stumbling-blocks to them. It is without a doubt, that many saints are stumbling blocks to many souls. The world, they rejoice when they see the sins that are in the saints" -Jeremiah Burroughs Spots of the Godly and of the Wicked

"What then is it in the soul which causes it to take more pleasure in things which it loves when they are found and recovered than if it has always had them" (Augustine Confessions Bk. VIII Pg. 137)

Love, and do what you like.
Saint Augustine

Deep roots are not reached by the frost...

"Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat."-C.S. LewisHurt, This is a great video, song cover by Johnny Cash.

One of the reasons I value Country music, Bluegrass, Gospel and the Blues...is that elders are still worth listening too in this genre. Somehow being a sinner and a saint is possible down South....there is still deep wisdom outside the city limits.

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. -JRR Tolkien

Chasing Blue Sky....

"The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers" -Ralph W. Emerson (from "The Poet")

I took this picture yesterday, as I was enjoying my lunch. The sky was so blue, the clouds were too soft and white to be real, it looked like a painting of Monet, just to beautiful to not take the time to capture and remember. It also reminded me of the above selection of Emerson's essay entitled "The Poet" that I am throughly enjoying but at predetermined and self restrained, slow nibble...because I just dont want it to end.

This picture also reminded me of this song: "Chasing Blue Sky"; one of my faves from this band.

The Christian Pill...

I know this will get a few folks all in a tizzy but, oh man, this is painfully true. So many people present the way of Jesus in this manner...God help us.

Poets don't make arguments, they reveal mysteries...

"What the congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image." -pastor-professor, and poet, M. Craig Barnes, in his new book: The Pastor As Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life

"Just like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, savvy, resourceful and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. Many of us learn about these qualities in the darkest moments of our lives when the faculties we normally depend upon utterly fail us—the intellect is useless, the emotions dead, the will impotent, and the ego shattered. But sometimes, way back in the thickets of our inner lives, we sense the presence of something that knows how to stay alive and helps us to keep going. That something, I suggest, is the tough and tenacious soul. And yet the soul, despite its toughness, is also essentially shy—just like a wild animal. It will flee from the noisy crowd and seek safety in the deep underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out! But if we will walk into the woods quietly and sit at the base of a tree, breathing with the earth and fading into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek may eventually show up." -Parker Palme

I find that the poetic voice is desperately needed today, especially within the church.

Poetry fosters and nurtures life by finding wonder in the nooks and crannies of ordinary life.
-Suzanne Rhodes: The Roar on the Other Side: A Guide for Student Poets

Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype. — Saint Gregory of Nyssa

The Dangers of Fundamentalism...

John Dominic Crossan has nailed the crux of the nasty fangs and bite that I find in the mouths of many Christians that can't seem to engage ideas, history, doctrine, experience or teachers...without turning the conversations into trials or witch hunts. Now Im wary about John's views on other subjects and I think this line of thought taken too far can undermine foundational core issues or doctrines...but the attitude or spirit he addresses is killing the pursuit of the educated mind, especially within churches. It's the same power at work in the life of Paul that had him standing there holding the coats of those who were bludgeoning Stephen to death, with rocks. When religion starts picking up stones, erecting gallows, gathering wood and blogging decrees...evil days are brewing.

"But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." -Paul (Galatians 5:15) Spoken by a man who knew where that kind of zealousness can lead.

Now here is a video where all the dialogue is text taken directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums. WARNING it contains some offensive language.As brutal, raw and offensive as that is...its a painful wake up call to the dialogue taking place within some streams of Churchianity. Some might be shocked by hearing such things...others...not really. It's an ugly conversation going on and unfortunately more words are being uttered than should be spoken and less spiritual lives are living out convincing arguments.

God help us....

Inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity...

"A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself." -Benjamin Disreali's wonderful description of rival William Gladstone.

Blogs can become the very egotistical idols that the above quote perfectly exposes. The very thought that anyone would want to or need to, hear anything from us; is on a certain level, born of pride or insecurity.

One wonders, if he doesn't bark...who will ever feed him?

That is very revealing and it exposes the deep brokenness or dysfunction at play within the tortured blogging soul. I am sure bloggers represent the cream of the crop of undernurtured babies who got bottles instead of boobies....and we are still craving the soothing cradle of mommie's-baby talk...ie. the comment section of blogs.

In fact, the very act of preaching, teaching, writing, poetry, the arts, acting on and on...at some levels exposes us needy artistic cats, who are always careening at cultures heals, for a pet and a stroke.

It's all so painfully psychosomatic....and yet, God, truth, community, revelation, comfort, escape, healing, awakening, conviction, transformation, life, death and a host of other seeds of experience get sown.

In the end...its all so very conflicted...but blood covers it all.

In that, I have to rest.

(Props to my father in law for always using part of the above quote, which is where I first heard of it)

Signs of life...

As I was ascending my arduous climb up to the Ben Burr Trail, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this little fellow. After such a long and hard winter and a dreary few weeks, this little face was almost exciting. Quite joyful, peeking out of the earth, with his arms all open, as if praising God....or at least thats what I felt like, while looking down on his little resurrection. I felt like brother Frank, climbing around the rocks, slightly caught up in the warming of life starting to make itself known.

It reminds me of the prayer of St. Frank:

Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs."
-Selection from the prayer/poem Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon of St. Francis of Assisi (The real father of the green movement)

I was equally thrilled to see that someone has been picking up garbage this week on the trail...I bless you, whoever you are! And across from the condom wrapper, buried condom and beer cans, that have been removed...was this little piece of art. Offered as a testimony of care, I am sure....or at least that's how I took it. Such acts matter...and when we do them, we might only think of the moment, but the ripple of that leads to many more places and actions than we ever will know, until we meet the Lord who will reveal to us the mosaic of connections our thoughts, prayers and actions accomplished or sparked.

Praise be to God for simple things...and simple people.

Peter Rollins & Phyllis Tickle

Net Ninjas, webcasting witchcraft, spiritual porn and community...

A Dialogue is different than a monologue and one has to determine as a commentator on a blog, if you are seriously interested in conversation or would rather engage in proclamation. They really are different beasts, both are valuable and have their place..the trick is realizing when one is working against the flow of the purposed endeavor.

Some blogs or blog posts are meant to become anvils that will draw the blows of hammers. But not just for hammering sake...hopefully some item of thought, some value, doctrine or issue is drawing those blows to refine, sharpen, blunt or thin the chunky unformed idea or belief. The work of the strong forceful thundering makes something in the foundry of bloggerville.

But other blogs or posts are meant to facilitate something more than just the forming, reforming or refining of things. These blogs become a further conversation rooted to real people. They are extensions to having face to face relationships furthered not intended to be replaced by the blog. These are conversations that are meant to build up the body local. Places where a group of people are enfleshing the ideas, putting skin on them...not just trumpeting phrases, quotes and ideas out into the net air. These places become "open-sourced" endeavors that combine the wisdom of the many into the life of a community wrestling with truth and life. They are ingredients in the ongoing fermentation of communal life that needs all kinds of catalysts to become what God intends us to be. The blog serves "us"...

Its the balance of not allowing technology to rule us and not becoming servants of the technology.

Visible church, day to day community becomes a safeguard against the temptations associated with internet anonymity. Too many people hide in the internet, they become "net ninjas" who only come out of the shadows to strike, slash, burn and stab. They lurk behind the conversations and posts. Stealth, secrecy and obscurity are their cloak. Their comments come like arrows shot from some dark corner of the roof from which they have perched themselves to look down on the ignorant masses...or victims to be.

Their comments are not rooted in the work of localized, community building; which has the boundaries of accountability, place, context and continuity...we see each other this week. These safeguards, become the sides of the riverbank, they hold the flow of conversational water....and the river has less chance of becoming a death dealing flood, instead of a life giving source.

Some of my blogs are meant to be a "free for all" type of experience...others, like the Christ & Culture" blog are for in-house church relationships that have the disciplines in place mentioned above.

The beauty and tragic thing about blogs is that they often represent both the abundance that is present in ones private or community life...or they represent the poverty. In some places, especially churches, there is hardly many people willing to engage issues, ideas, movements, films, books, music or sadly, even God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and scriptures. Blogs can become unhealthy substitutes, alternatives, overdosed-supplements or even for some their daily bread.

Blogs can end up being pumped breast milk from surrogate mommies in the faith. There is a absence of touch, breath, warmth, voice, eyes looking at you, hands and arms coddling you. Blogs or video venues, tv and webcasts become our modern form of incantations...we bring up the dead, or we commune with people in modern forms of astra projection...going places, transporting into one another's presence...but its almost dangers on an unholy lack of boundary. We have to be careful that we are not practicing an advanced form of technological witchcraft or high tech necromancy.

Some times death is God's way of putting an end to conversations that shouldnt continue beyond their context of time.

Now obviously all of this thought should be tempered with the realties of some peoples lives. Shut in, people living in spiritual deserts, missionaries, or physically challenged, handicapped or people dealing with health issues are all able to derive life sustaining help from these forms of technology. But other people can cheat on one another with this cheap, easy, always waiting, stimulating mental and spiritual pornography...all pleasure...no commitments or faithfulness required.

Place, time, life, faces and relationships...help ground us in the ancient practice of localized community.