Today, Josiah was playing in his room and he was attempting to pick up large handfuls of big lego blocks to transfer them to the other side of the room. Unfortunately, his little arms were no match for the slick plastic blocks. After time and time of failed attempts, his little faced curled up and he began to cry. As I sat there with him, all I could think was, join the club buddy, join the club.
As I grew up, people always said, You can do anything you set your mind to. I loved it when they said that, the world was open and available to me, anything I wanted I could achieve. But now, officially in my late 20's, I have not achieved the things I set my mind to when I was younger. What's more, no matter how hard I would have tried, I never would have become a professional ballplayer or platinum selling rock star. (There were significant parts of my life where these were the desires of my heart)
Of course, as my life has gone on, there have been moments where I have realized that I had reached some limitation of my natural capacities. Very much like Josiah's attempts at picking up blocks, these have been hard moments to deal with. Coming to grips with my own limitations can be heartbreaking. It's more than just the frustration of not being able to accomplish a task or achieve a dream. A person's soul can take a pretty solid blow when you realize that the horizon of 'what is possible' is somehow less expansive than it used to be. (If you've seen Napoleon Dynamite, think Uncle Rico chucking steaks at Napoleon to prove he can still throw a football.)
As I get older, I find new goals and new dreams, fresh designs on what is possible in my life. And yet, even in reshaping what I set my mind to, I still find myself dealing with my own limitations. I will never be the best thinker, writer, speaker, teacher. The life I "have set my mind to" will inevitably be tempered as time goes on.
It could be that my only option is to dispair of what I fail to achieve. There are moments when I feel that is the best option. More likely, though, I should learn to think in new ways. Instead of believing I can do anything I set my mind to, I'm trying to embrace the idea that I have limitations, and that limitations are not a sign of weakness. Because it could be that my limitations are a sign that I have been designed, specifically, for particular purposes. The living of life then is more about discovering God's intentions for me, than achieving whatever fancy strikes me on that particular day.
I wanted to just hug Josiah. I knew the kind of pain he was feeling when he bumped up against his physical limitation. In a way, dealing with these limitations is part of life. I just don't want it to be all of life.
Can you relate?
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Fish Shirts and other Creature Comforts
Our days are pretty hectic. We are learning to parent kids, not just kid. Amazing what a difference that little ‘s’ makes. At the end of the day, we are pretty tired. So, once these yahoos are in bed and we have had our dinner and the dishes are done, which hopefully, I’ve helped with, she comes into the family room and says with a sigh, “It’s time for the fish shirt.”
Ann has this sweatshirt that she stole from her dad when she was little. It is incredibly old. And, if we are being honest, not exactly the pinnacle of fashion. It has a cartoon fisherman standing in a boat casting his line down one of the sleeves. Midway down the right sleeve of this sweatshirt, you discover that the fisherman has hooked this enormous cartoon fish with big googly eyes.
In our house, the fish shirt has taken on almost mythological status. It is so much more than a shirt. It is a symbol that the work for the day is done and now it is time to get comfortable and relax. This shirt symbolizes the rest that both of us crave after a day of work and chasing our little ones around the house. Relaxation and rest is much harder if you aren’t in your comfy clothes. The fish shirt provides the comfort necessary for re-creation.
As diversified as fashion has become these days, most Americans are really just walking around in fish shirts. Our houses are filled with devices aimed at decreasing stress and anxiety while maximizing our comfort level (I’m sitting in one example of that as I’m writing this).
Products develop around new technologies and features aimed at increasing the level of comfort that each one can deliver the consumer. Take, for example, the car. (Disclaimer: This is not a historical account.) When it was created, the only climate control was based on what the weather was outside since you were literally in the outdoors when you were in one. So, to shield us from bad weather, we developed stronger roofs and windows.
We still had to deal with the problem of temperature, though. So, heaters were installed to keep us warm. The summer months were another problem all together. Climate control in the summer time used to mean rolling down the windows and you prayed you could air the car out before sitting down on those molten lava hot vinyl seats. But with the advent of the air conditioner, cars now had the ability to deliver the proper comfort to the whole car regardless of season, without having to roll down the windows (who has time for that anyway).
Once the mini-van came around, and I’m assuming once parents got tired of their kids moaning about how hot/cold they were, the rear climate control feature was added, allowing those in the back seat to control the force and temperature of the air flow. That however, was not enough because the driver and the passenger (for too long!) had to barter over the temperature coming from the front vents. No more though! The dual climate control feature was added now allowing everyone in the car to determine for themselves just the right temperature for them to be comfortable. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the new options made available to us by heated and cooled seats!)
We have become a highly comfortable society and thus we are driven by the pursuit of these comforts. But the question I’ve been wondering about is; how has an obsession with comfort crept into the ways we practice our faith?
In many ways, the answer is simply that we have taken something that should make us mainly uncomfortable and turned into something that helps increase our comfort. We have become very adept at turning the gospel life into the secret path to personal happiness, or a way to attain the life we have always wanted. More than the many who make a very good life telling people that God wants them to have a good life, regular, everyday Christians have trouble thinking about the gospel as something other than a way to be comfortable. I know that my actions all too often make it seem like its something I think as well.
This certainly makes it hard to see how Jesus could define the good life as giving up your life for him or for your neighbor. It makes it hard to see how taking up your cross and following him in the way of death could be anything other than a metaphor about personal humility. It makes it hard to see how Jesus could have goals outside of fixing my life and making me comfortable. It just makes it hard to see clearly.
Ann has this sweatshirt that she stole from her dad when she was little. It is incredibly old. And, if we are being honest, not exactly the pinnacle of fashion. It has a cartoon fisherman standing in a boat casting his line down one of the sleeves. Midway down the right sleeve of this sweatshirt, you discover that the fisherman has hooked this enormous cartoon fish with big googly eyes.
In our house, the fish shirt has taken on almost mythological status. It is so much more than a shirt. It is a symbol that the work for the day is done and now it is time to get comfortable and relax. This shirt symbolizes the rest that both of us crave after a day of work and chasing our little ones around the house. Relaxation and rest is much harder if you aren’t in your comfy clothes. The fish shirt provides the comfort necessary for re-creation.
As diversified as fashion has become these days, most Americans are really just walking around in fish shirts. Our houses are filled with devices aimed at decreasing stress and anxiety while maximizing our comfort level (I’m sitting in one example of that as I’m writing this).
Products develop around new technologies and features aimed at increasing the level of comfort that each one can deliver the consumer. Take, for example, the car. (Disclaimer: This is not a historical account.) When it was created, the only climate control was based on what the weather was outside since you were literally in the outdoors when you were in one. So, to shield us from bad weather, we developed stronger roofs and windows.
We still had to deal with the problem of temperature, though. So, heaters were installed to keep us warm. The summer months were another problem all together. Climate control in the summer time used to mean rolling down the windows and you prayed you could air the car out before sitting down on those molten lava hot vinyl seats. But with the advent of the air conditioner, cars now had the ability to deliver the proper comfort to the whole car regardless of season, without having to roll down the windows (who has time for that anyway).
Once the mini-van came around, and I’m assuming once parents got tired of their kids moaning about how hot/cold they were, the rear climate control feature was added, allowing those in the back seat to control the force and temperature of the air flow. That however, was not enough because the driver and the passenger (for too long!) had to barter over the temperature coming from the front vents. No more though! The dual climate control feature was added now allowing everyone in the car to determine for themselves just the right temperature for them to be comfortable. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the new options made available to us by heated and cooled seats!)
We have become a highly comfortable society and thus we are driven by the pursuit of these comforts. But the question I’ve been wondering about is; how has an obsession with comfort crept into the ways we practice our faith?
In many ways, the answer is simply that we have taken something that should make us mainly uncomfortable and turned into something that helps increase our comfort. We have become very adept at turning the gospel life into the secret path to personal happiness, or a way to attain the life we have always wanted. More than the many who make a very good life telling people that God wants them to have a good life, regular, everyday Christians have trouble thinking about the gospel as something other than a way to be comfortable. I know that my actions all too often make it seem like its something I think as well.
This certainly makes it hard to see how Jesus could define the good life as giving up your life for him or for your neighbor. It makes it hard to see how taking up your cross and following him in the way of death could be anything other than a metaphor about personal humility. It makes it hard to see how Jesus could have goals outside of fixing my life and making me comfortable. It just makes it hard to see clearly.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Curiosity v. Couch: The Epic Battle
My son is insatiably curious. He’s approaching 2 years old and it seems that his curiosity is fundamentally unquenchable. He is at the age where playing would really more accurately be described as exploring. When we play in his room, he roams from his toybox, to his bookshelf, to his pile of blocks, to his dresser drawers. Every stop along the way elicits the same kind of response from him. “Ohh!” and “Wow!” are his most frequently uttered words. He is constantly pulling his toys out of his toybox, almost like he’s hoping to discover something hidden in the bottom that he had forgotten about. From the moment his day starts, my son is driven by this curiosity.
Of course, this curiosity that cannot be slicked is sometimes a burden on those of us around him. Josiah quickly gets into things he shouldn’t be playing with and wants to explore drawers and cabinets full of things that 20 month old hands would more likely ruin than anything else. But even the energy we expend redirecting his pursuits is a symptom of the kind of life he lives every day. Josiah’s curiosity drives him to explore. It motivates him to find something new.
When he comes up against a boundary, either one that is due to his limited abilities or parental restraint, he comes apart at the seams. He cannot conceive of a reason why anyone would not want to experience life the way he wants to experience it. Why wouldn’t you want to go outside right now? Why would you not want to play in the dirt and eat this bug? Why wouldn’t you want to climb up on the back of the couch and teeter perilously close to the edge like this?
These are questions he cannot answer, because they are no brainers to him. Our home and the outside world are wide open spaces for him to take in all that life has to offer him. Every experience he has, every discovery he makes is proof that this is the way life is supposed to be and it drives him to find new experiences and make new discoveries until he simply cannot keep his eyes open and he falls asleep only to wake up ready to discover new worlds and hidden treasure boxes.
Now, contrast that with his dad. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is usually something like, “How long until I get to go back to sleep?” It takes a good jog, shower and grooming session before I feel like engaging anything in a meaningful way. The mental task list that begins to compile in my brain as I am taking a shower is discouragingly long by the time I head out the door and by the time I sit down in my chair in the office, I’m already tired. At the end of a day of work, my son is running circles around me, which only serves to highlight the vast difference between his limitless curiosity and my penchant for tuning out.
Tuning out is easy when there is very little mystery left in life. At this point, I pretty much know what is in all the drawers and cabinets in my house, I don’t need to go exploring. I’ve been outside and I’ve had a few years of experience with grass, trees, dirt and bugs and I’d rather just stay inside where I can stay clean and I don’t run the risk of getting bugs on me.
I really think I’ve lost something. There was a time in my life where I would play outside exploring the world around me until it was too dark to see. I wouldn’t come inside, even if I had to go to the bathroom. I would scarf down my dinner so that I wouldn’t waste one minute of precious daylight. There was life to be lived! But now, it seems like, most days, I just sit and think about what I’m missing while I fill my time with TV shows and Facebook. Instead of being insatiably curious, more often than not, I just feel sleepy.
Of course, this curiosity that cannot be slicked is sometimes a burden on those of us around him. Josiah quickly gets into things he shouldn’t be playing with and wants to explore drawers and cabinets full of things that 20 month old hands would more likely ruin than anything else. But even the energy we expend redirecting his pursuits is a symptom of the kind of life he lives every day. Josiah’s curiosity drives him to explore. It motivates him to find something new.
When he comes up against a boundary, either one that is due to his limited abilities or parental restraint, he comes apart at the seams. He cannot conceive of a reason why anyone would not want to experience life the way he wants to experience it. Why wouldn’t you want to go outside right now? Why would you not want to play in the dirt and eat this bug? Why wouldn’t you want to climb up on the back of the couch and teeter perilously close to the edge like this?
These are questions he cannot answer, because they are no brainers to him. Our home and the outside world are wide open spaces for him to take in all that life has to offer him. Every experience he has, every discovery he makes is proof that this is the way life is supposed to be and it drives him to find new experiences and make new discoveries until he simply cannot keep his eyes open and he falls asleep only to wake up ready to discover new worlds and hidden treasure boxes.
Now, contrast that with his dad. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is usually something like, “How long until I get to go back to sleep?” It takes a good jog, shower and grooming session before I feel like engaging anything in a meaningful way. The mental task list that begins to compile in my brain as I am taking a shower is discouragingly long by the time I head out the door and by the time I sit down in my chair in the office, I’m already tired. At the end of a day of work, my son is running circles around me, which only serves to highlight the vast difference between his limitless curiosity and my penchant for tuning out.
Tuning out is easy when there is very little mystery left in life. At this point, I pretty much know what is in all the drawers and cabinets in my house, I don’t need to go exploring. I’ve been outside and I’ve had a few years of experience with grass, trees, dirt and bugs and I’d rather just stay inside where I can stay clean and I don’t run the risk of getting bugs on me.
I really think I’ve lost something. There was a time in my life where I would play outside exploring the world around me until it was too dark to see. I wouldn’t come inside, even if I had to go to the bathroom. I would scarf down my dinner so that I wouldn’t waste one minute of precious daylight. There was life to be lived! But now, it seems like, most days, I just sit and think about what I’m missing while I fill my time with TV shows and Facebook. Instead of being insatiably curious, more often than not, I just feel sleepy.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Remembering Whidbey: Part 1
A few years ago, I flew to Washington state with some friends to attend a conference. We spent a week at an old army base called Camp Casey that was located on Whidbey Island off the coast of Seattle. We all worked together at a Christian college outside of Chicago and we were at this conference to think about things like mentoring and spiritual formation on a college campus.
To be honest, I have never experienced anything close to the happenings on the islands off the coast of Washington. Somehow, the week on Whidbey etched itself into my life and created a more meaningful experience than I think I’ve ever had.
I have to admit, I am not very good at meeting new people. I much prefer the comfort of spending time with people I know to the nervousness of connecting with people I’ve never met. So initially, this conference was a bit off-putting. It was a highly relational gathering of people who seemed to, unlike me, draw energy by connecting with new people.
Right away, I was feeling stretched. Not only were these people new, but they were professionals in the same field I was in and so I knew that I would battle my innate tendencies to compare myself with all these people for the next 5 days. They were far more experienced, thoughtful and put together than I was.
Situations like this make me feel a little bit like the kid who, no matter how hard he tries, always seems to spill his lunch on his shirt and come back from the bathroom with toilet paper on his shoe. I think I spend far too much time checking my shoes for trailing toilet paper and looking for stains on my shirt. Its hard to feel comfortable with those kinds of preoccupations.
But, alas, here I was, and I was excited, even if it manifested itself as anxiety and intimidation. What is more, the guest speaker for the first two days seemed interesting. He was a big man with long curly hair. He was dressed like he had just gotten off a sailboat but his hands were so big it looked like he made a living hacking out canoes from tree trunks. And he was the president of a graduate school to boot. He seemed like a bit of a wild card so I was excited to see what he was all about.
After dinner together, he got up and began telling stories. Better stories than I had ever heard. He told us a story about how he would pick up loose change that people drop and keep it, but then offer it back in exchange for some conversation. Who does that? I liked it a lot. Then he told us about what we were going to be doing the next day. He said we would be walking through our lives and digging up all the pain and hurt and joys and delights of our past and putting it all together to see if we could make sense out of what God was doing with our lives.
So the anxiety was back. I had been had. He lured me in with his funny and compelling tales of bribing old ladies to talk to him on the bus and then he drops the bomb, we were going to have to be honest with each other and with ourselves about our lives. I wish I could remember looking around the room at the others there at that moment. Looking back, I sort of imagine myself begin to curl up in a ball, trying to protect myself from the inevitable process we were going to walk through together.
For now, though, the night was over, and I could go back to telling jokes with David and Greg, watching the waves hit the pebble covered beach, getting transfixed by the campfire, and thinking deeper thoughts than I normally do. This was a better day than most.
To be honest, I have never experienced anything close to the happenings on the islands off the coast of Washington. Somehow, the week on Whidbey etched itself into my life and created a more meaningful experience than I think I’ve ever had.
I have to admit, I am not very good at meeting new people. I much prefer the comfort of spending time with people I know to the nervousness of connecting with people I’ve never met. So initially, this conference was a bit off-putting. It was a highly relational gathering of people who seemed to, unlike me, draw energy by connecting with new people.
Right away, I was feeling stretched. Not only were these people new, but they were professionals in the same field I was in and so I knew that I would battle my innate tendencies to compare myself with all these people for the next 5 days. They were far more experienced, thoughtful and put together than I was.
Situations like this make me feel a little bit like the kid who, no matter how hard he tries, always seems to spill his lunch on his shirt and come back from the bathroom with toilet paper on his shoe. I think I spend far too much time checking my shoes for trailing toilet paper and looking for stains on my shirt. Its hard to feel comfortable with those kinds of preoccupations.
But, alas, here I was, and I was excited, even if it manifested itself as anxiety and intimidation. What is more, the guest speaker for the first two days seemed interesting. He was a big man with long curly hair. He was dressed like he had just gotten off a sailboat but his hands were so big it looked like he made a living hacking out canoes from tree trunks. And he was the president of a graduate school to boot. He seemed like a bit of a wild card so I was excited to see what he was all about.
After dinner together, he got up and began telling stories. Better stories than I had ever heard. He told us a story about how he would pick up loose change that people drop and keep it, but then offer it back in exchange for some conversation. Who does that? I liked it a lot. Then he told us about what we were going to be doing the next day. He said we would be walking through our lives and digging up all the pain and hurt and joys and delights of our past and putting it all together to see if we could make sense out of what God was doing with our lives.
So the anxiety was back. I had been had. He lured me in with his funny and compelling tales of bribing old ladies to talk to him on the bus and then he drops the bomb, we were going to have to be honest with each other and with ourselves about our lives. I wish I could remember looking around the room at the others there at that moment. Looking back, I sort of imagine myself begin to curl up in a ball, trying to protect myself from the inevitable process we were going to walk through together.
For now, though, the night was over, and I could go back to telling jokes with David and Greg, watching the waves hit the pebble covered beach, getting transfixed by the campfire, and thinking deeper thoughts than I normally do. This was a better day than most.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
on feeding tubes and incubators
When my second son was born, just a few weeks ago, he had a few complications and so the doctors sent him to the NCU for a few days of close observation. During that time, he wasn’t eating enough from a bottle so the doctors inserted a feeding tube down his little throat to make sure he was getting enough nutrients. They kept him in one of those little plexiglass incubator boxes that regulates the temperature and had him attached to various machines in order to monitor his vitals.
This was all emotionally taxing to see, but the hardest thing was watching him using the feeding tube. It felt very unnatural. He wasn’t supposed to be able to exist on his own in this little box, he was supposed to come home with us and need us to care for him and need my wife to feed him. This other thing just wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This felt like artificial independence to me.
I think about that when I hear people talking about being independent Christians. Churches have started using the phrase ‘self-feeders’ when they talk about the goals of their discipleship program. The idea is that Christians should be totally independent people, completely capable of existing on their own...spiritually speaking.
(Now I will admit that far too many people feel like they cannot survive unless they have a pastor teaching them. They simply don’t believe they can understand Scripture unless someone who has a fancy degree tells them what it means. I understand why pastors and church leaders would want to wean people away from cognitive dump spiritual growth and toward a dynamic personal life with God. There are many benefits to training people to think, study and pray for themselves.)
But I have begun to wonder if we have missed something significant along the way to becoming self-feeding Christians. I’m wondering if we have come to think that Christian maturity is synonymous with Christian independence. The most mature Christians will be the ones who do not need anyone else to maintain spiritual vitality. To put it another way, to depend on someone else is to demonstrate a lack of maturity in faith.
I’ve come to see this as artificial independence. It’s kind of like we champion the idea that the strongest in our communities are the ones who are solidly encased in a plexiglass incubator with feeding tubes down their throats. So we all strive for that. We want to be satiated and comfortable within the confines of our meticulously controlled spiritual eco-system. We do not need anyone to feed us, we are capable of feeding ourselves. No wonder people think they don’t need to be a part of the family of God... they really don’t.
This is where we have missed something. We have missed the fact that we aren’t supposed to be able to exist on our own. We are supposed to genuinely need each other. What if we extracted the feeding tubes from our throats and stepped out of our climate controlled incubators? What if my spiritual journey was less about ensuring that I am fed and focused more on feeding my sisters and brothers? What if I stopped asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and began to ask, ‘What’s in me for you?’
Two things would happen I think.
1. We would learn what it means to be generous.
Asking a different question might lead us down new roads and help us explore what a real generosity of life looks like. It means that we would learn to orient our lives around giving grace, showing mercy, extending forgiveness, pursuing shalom, and helping others flourish. This would be a way to practice giving up my life for the sake of the ones in my community. Imagine what kind of communities we would have if we came into them practicing that kind of generosity.
2. We would learn what it means to trust.
As you may have been thinking all along, if I take out the feeding tube and start feeding others, won’t I starve? Well, not necessarily. However, instead of being artificially independent, you will have to trust the sisters and brothers who gather around you in community. You will have to entrust your spiritual vitality to them and God’s Spirit working through them. That may be hard to do, but real community will never be easy.
(I’m not saying that we don’t practice spiritual disciplines or pursue personal spiritual formation. What I’m saying is that we miss something if we view personal spiritual transformation as the only end of our spiritual journey, and that we might be surprised how much God shapes us as we give our lives to our communities.)
Learning to entrust ourselves to the community of God is one way we learn that real faith is about cultivating dependence, just like my son is living a more human existence because he is dependent on us for everything. As my son grows he will need different kinds of support from us, he will always need us, just in different ways. As much as society may tell us the goal of life is independence, it seems to me that the goal of the life of faith is to realize what real dependence looks like. Human independence doesn’t seem to be all that human to me. We flourish when we are connected to one another, because its not good for us to be alone...
This was all emotionally taxing to see, but the hardest thing was watching him using the feeding tube. It felt very unnatural. He wasn’t supposed to be able to exist on his own in this little box, he was supposed to come home with us and need us to care for him and need my wife to feed him. This other thing just wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This felt like artificial independence to me.
I think about that when I hear people talking about being independent Christians. Churches have started using the phrase ‘self-feeders’ when they talk about the goals of their discipleship program. The idea is that Christians should be totally independent people, completely capable of existing on their own...spiritually speaking.
(Now I will admit that far too many people feel like they cannot survive unless they have a pastor teaching them. They simply don’t believe they can understand Scripture unless someone who has a fancy degree tells them what it means. I understand why pastors and church leaders would want to wean people away from cognitive dump spiritual growth and toward a dynamic personal life with God. There are many benefits to training people to think, study and pray for themselves.)
But I have begun to wonder if we have missed something significant along the way to becoming self-feeding Christians. I’m wondering if we have come to think that Christian maturity is synonymous with Christian independence. The most mature Christians will be the ones who do not need anyone else to maintain spiritual vitality. To put it another way, to depend on someone else is to demonstrate a lack of maturity in faith.
I’ve come to see this as artificial independence. It’s kind of like we champion the idea that the strongest in our communities are the ones who are solidly encased in a plexiglass incubator with feeding tubes down their throats. So we all strive for that. We want to be satiated and comfortable within the confines of our meticulously controlled spiritual eco-system. We do not need anyone to feed us, we are capable of feeding ourselves. No wonder people think they don’t need to be a part of the family of God... they really don’t.
This is where we have missed something. We have missed the fact that we aren’t supposed to be able to exist on our own. We are supposed to genuinely need each other. What if we extracted the feeding tubes from our throats and stepped out of our climate controlled incubators? What if my spiritual journey was less about ensuring that I am fed and focused more on feeding my sisters and brothers? What if I stopped asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and began to ask, ‘What’s in me for you?’
Two things would happen I think.
1. We would learn what it means to be generous.
Asking a different question might lead us down new roads and help us explore what a real generosity of life looks like. It means that we would learn to orient our lives around giving grace, showing mercy, extending forgiveness, pursuing shalom, and helping others flourish. This would be a way to practice giving up my life for the sake of the ones in my community. Imagine what kind of communities we would have if we came into them practicing that kind of generosity.
2. We would learn what it means to trust.
As you may have been thinking all along, if I take out the feeding tube and start feeding others, won’t I starve? Well, not necessarily. However, instead of being artificially independent, you will have to trust the sisters and brothers who gather around you in community. You will have to entrust your spiritual vitality to them and God’s Spirit working through them. That may be hard to do, but real community will never be easy.
(I’m not saying that we don’t practice spiritual disciplines or pursue personal spiritual formation. What I’m saying is that we miss something if we view personal spiritual transformation as the only end of our spiritual journey, and that we might be surprised how much God shapes us as we give our lives to our communities.)
Learning to entrust ourselves to the community of God is one way we learn that real faith is about cultivating dependence, just like my son is living a more human existence because he is dependent on us for everything. As my son grows he will need different kinds of support from us, he will always need us, just in different ways. As much as society may tell us the goal of life is independence, it seems to me that the goal of the life of faith is to realize what real dependence looks like. Human independence doesn’t seem to be all that human to me. We flourish when we are connected to one another, because its not good for us to be alone...
Monday, September 21, 2009
where would I fit on the pyramid?
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a local diner, having a breakfast meeting with Ben. We were discussing all forms of ministry and life related issues when next to us a conversation got so loud it was impossible not to hear. Two young adults were discussing what immediately became clear as a high school cheerleading team. Presumably, these two were coaches, advisors, or maybe camp directors. That I will never know. What I do know is that the conversation made me as sad as I have been in a while. As plain as day, one coach said to the other, "What do you do with the ugly girl? You put her in the back where she belongs."
No joke, direct quote. Ben and I sat there stunned. Walking around today has left me wondering...where would I have gotten placed in the pyramid? Where would any of us have gotten placed? I'm pretty sure our hearts couldn't handle hearing the answer to that question... What does it say about the world when the ones given charge over our young people use that kind of matrix to make decisions? What hope do any of us have if that's the message being sent to all of us? Is there any wonder people make some of the decisions they do when that kind of garbage shapes the way we see the world? Most days the world is harsh and ugly, and people who think like that only make it harsher and uglier.
Today is a sad day. Perhaps no more sad than other days, but the cold, vicious nature of the "real" world was simply booked on the main stage this morning. Personally, I'm tired of the main stage being filled by this kind of act. Acts that disregard real, honest humanity in favor of culturally embedded and captive ways of thinking that are as shallow as Josiah's kiddie pool out back. Acts that fail to see that we have allowed movie stars to determine the value of a human being and that we have in large part just accepted their determinations because we like the flavor of their Kool-Aid.
There is only one thing that keeps my head above the water on days like today. That (to quote Jason Gray), everything sad is coming untrue. Everything sad is coming untrue. That buoys my spirit, because I remember that Jesus asked people who weren't the best and the most beautiful to follow him, he asked regular gals and guys, people who likely would have been "in the back, where they belonged" by anyone else's estimation, these folks had a place in Jesus' movement. The scene in the diner this morning is no surprise, right?
I think Ben was right, perhaps there is no better reason for us to invest ourselves in the world (our schools, our neighbors and our neighborhoods) than simply to be a different voice, a voice that says, "There is another way. You don't have to be defined by these silly and shallow notions of what beauty is and what gives you self-worth... ...there are other ways of seeing the world. There are other definitions of what true beauty is, different ways of measuring how much value you truly have..." Come to think of it, I think I'll move to the back of the pyramid anyway, I'm not sure I want to be chosen to be the lead in this play...the scary part is, most days I feel like I play the part all too well.
No joke, direct quote. Ben and I sat there stunned. Walking around today has left me wondering...where would I have gotten placed in the pyramid? Where would any of us have gotten placed? I'm pretty sure our hearts couldn't handle hearing the answer to that question... What does it say about the world when the ones given charge over our young people use that kind of matrix to make decisions? What hope do any of us have if that's the message being sent to all of us? Is there any wonder people make some of the decisions they do when that kind of garbage shapes the way we see the world? Most days the world is harsh and ugly, and people who think like that only make it harsher and uglier.
Today is a sad day. Perhaps no more sad than other days, but the cold, vicious nature of the "real" world was simply booked on the main stage this morning. Personally, I'm tired of the main stage being filled by this kind of act. Acts that disregard real, honest humanity in favor of culturally embedded and captive ways of thinking that are as shallow as Josiah's kiddie pool out back. Acts that fail to see that we have allowed movie stars to determine the value of a human being and that we have in large part just accepted their determinations because we like the flavor of their Kool-Aid.
There is only one thing that keeps my head above the water on days like today. That (to quote Jason Gray), everything sad is coming untrue. Everything sad is coming untrue. That buoys my spirit, because I remember that Jesus asked people who weren't the best and the most beautiful to follow him, he asked regular gals and guys, people who likely would have been "in the back, where they belonged" by anyone else's estimation, these folks had a place in Jesus' movement. The scene in the diner this morning is no surprise, right?
I think Ben was right, perhaps there is no better reason for us to invest ourselves in the world (our schools, our neighbors and our neighborhoods) than simply to be a different voice, a voice that says, "There is another way. You don't have to be defined by these silly and shallow notions of what beauty is and what gives you self-worth... ...there are other ways of seeing the world. There are other definitions of what true beauty is, different ways of measuring how much value you truly have..." Come to think of it, I think I'll move to the back of the pyramid anyway, I'm not sure I want to be chosen to be the lead in this play...the scary part is, most days I feel like I play the part all too well.
Friday, March 6, 2009
on following
I have been thinking this week about the ways we follow Jesus, and I began wondering…what if we followed Jesus the way we watch TV? To me, that’s an interesting question and the answer is, it would be really nice if we followed Jesus the way we watch TV, wouldn’t it?
Think about it.
Following Jesus would be very convenient. TV’s can be turned on and off anytime we want. If following Jesus were that way, that would mean that we could listen to Jesus when we wanted to, or if we didn’t feel like it, we wouldn’t have to. It means that we could choose the most convenient time to spend time with Jesus too. We could fit him into our schedule. It wouldn’t be a matter of trying to live life with Jesus it would be trying to find space in our life for Jesus.
TV affords us lots of choices. We can channel surf all day, just looking for something that interests us. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that we could develop selective hearing when it comes to Scripture. If there are parts of Scripture we don’t like to think about (like thinking about sin), that make us uncomfortable (like thinking about loving sinners) that bore us (like the OT), or that we don’t understand (like Revelation), we could ignore those.
When I watch TV, I camp out on the Food Network and ESPN, and maybe PBS if theres a good documentary on, that is what I love to watch. If following Jesus was like watching TV, then I could just camp out on the parts of Scripture that I liked the best (Like when Jesus says he came to save us, or when he does exciting miracles).
If following Jesus was like this, that would mean that I could decide how to follow him. Since I can choose what I listen to and what I don’t listen to, that means that I can personalize the way that I follow him. A custom-made discipleship program, not unlike many of the products marketed to us through our TV sets.
TV is also pretty comfortable. I can watch TV at home, relaxing on the couch. Watching TV doesn’t require much, except maybe a bowl of popcorn. What if following Jesus was as comfortable as watching TV? Well, it would mean that it wouldn’t require much. I don’t have to respond to TV when I watch it, I can just take it in. That would mean that I wouldn’t have to respond to Jesus either, I could just listen to what he says and that would be good enough, I wouldn’t have to respond in any particular way to what he says.
Watching TV is something I can do alone or in a group, really the choice is up to me. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that community would be an option. It would give me the freedom to choose if I wanted to follow Jesus on my own or as part of a group, and there wouldn’t really be any consequences to that decision, either way, I’m just going to be sitting on the couch sort of passively taking in what Jesus says, I’ve already said I wouldn’t have to worry about responding to it or anything, so whether I’m alone or in a group really has little bearing on the way I follow Jesus.
TV is about entertaining me. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that Jesus is all about entertaining me. It would mean that his whole purpose for doing what he did was to make me happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. Whatever other aims or goals he had would take a backseat to the fact that he came first and foremost, to make my life better.
And when I watch TV, I hold the remote I’m in charge. What if I was in charge of the relationship between me and Jesus? I wouldn’t have to take orders from him. In fact, I could give some orders. “Jesus, I’d like for you to do this for me, Jesus, when are you going to get around to fixing that in my life?” If I held the “remote” in the relationship, I could turn him on and off whenever I wanted. I could change the channel to something else if I didn’t like what he had to say.
In a sense, if following Jesus was like watching TV, then following Jesus would always be done on my terms. I would be the one who could set the agenda, decide what I hear and how I respond. I would be the one who controls the relationship if following Jesus was like watching TV.
I get the sense that many Christians today really do follow Jesus like we all watch TV. We really value convenience and choice and so we want to be able to fit Jesus into our schedules and we like having lots of ways to follow him, so we can choose the way the works best for us. It is an appealing thing to think that following Jesus would be easy. As a culture we like getting something for nothing, and there are times when we apply that way of thinking to the way we follow Jesus, where we look for maximum blessing benefits with no money down. Mainly though, I think Christians, many times, tend to try and follow Jesus without giving up the remote. We end up being followers of Jesus who end up telling Jesus how we want to follow him. We want to follow Jesus, but we want to do it on our terms.
And what does that say about us? What does it say about us that we are people who want to follow Jesus, but we want to be the ones who set the agenda for the way we are going to follow him? Well, I think it says that we are human.
Think about it.
Following Jesus would be very convenient. TV’s can be turned on and off anytime we want. If following Jesus were that way, that would mean that we could listen to Jesus when we wanted to, or if we didn’t feel like it, we wouldn’t have to. It means that we could choose the most convenient time to spend time with Jesus too. We could fit him into our schedule. It wouldn’t be a matter of trying to live life with Jesus it would be trying to find space in our life for Jesus.
TV affords us lots of choices. We can channel surf all day, just looking for something that interests us. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that we could develop selective hearing when it comes to Scripture. If there are parts of Scripture we don’t like to think about (like thinking about sin), that make us uncomfortable (like thinking about loving sinners) that bore us (like the OT), or that we don’t understand (like Revelation), we could ignore those.
When I watch TV, I camp out on the Food Network and ESPN, and maybe PBS if theres a good documentary on, that is what I love to watch. If following Jesus was like watching TV, then I could just camp out on the parts of Scripture that I liked the best (Like when Jesus says he came to save us, or when he does exciting miracles).
If following Jesus was like this, that would mean that I could decide how to follow him. Since I can choose what I listen to and what I don’t listen to, that means that I can personalize the way that I follow him. A custom-made discipleship program, not unlike many of the products marketed to us through our TV sets.
TV is also pretty comfortable. I can watch TV at home, relaxing on the couch. Watching TV doesn’t require much, except maybe a bowl of popcorn. What if following Jesus was as comfortable as watching TV? Well, it would mean that it wouldn’t require much. I don’t have to respond to TV when I watch it, I can just take it in. That would mean that I wouldn’t have to respond to Jesus either, I could just listen to what he says and that would be good enough, I wouldn’t have to respond in any particular way to what he says.
Watching TV is something I can do alone or in a group, really the choice is up to me. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that community would be an option. It would give me the freedom to choose if I wanted to follow Jesus on my own or as part of a group, and there wouldn’t really be any consequences to that decision, either way, I’m just going to be sitting on the couch sort of passively taking in what Jesus says, I’ve already said I wouldn’t have to worry about responding to it or anything, so whether I’m alone or in a group really has little bearing on the way I follow Jesus.
TV is about entertaining me. If following Jesus was like that, it would mean that Jesus is all about entertaining me. It would mean that his whole purpose for doing what he did was to make me happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. Whatever other aims or goals he had would take a backseat to the fact that he came first and foremost, to make my life better.
And when I watch TV, I hold the remote I’m in charge. What if I was in charge of the relationship between me and Jesus? I wouldn’t have to take orders from him. In fact, I could give some orders. “Jesus, I’d like for you to do this for me, Jesus, when are you going to get around to fixing that in my life?” If I held the “remote” in the relationship, I could turn him on and off whenever I wanted. I could change the channel to something else if I didn’t like what he had to say.
In a sense, if following Jesus was like watching TV, then following Jesus would always be done on my terms. I would be the one who could set the agenda, decide what I hear and how I respond. I would be the one who controls the relationship if following Jesus was like watching TV.
I get the sense that many Christians today really do follow Jesus like we all watch TV. We really value convenience and choice and so we want to be able to fit Jesus into our schedules and we like having lots of ways to follow him, so we can choose the way the works best for us. It is an appealing thing to think that following Jesus would be easy. As a culture we like getting something for nothing, and there are times when we apply that way of thinking to the way we follow Jesus, where we look for maximum blessing benefits with no money down. Mainly though, I think Christians, many times, tend to try and follow Jesus without giving up the remote. We end up being followers of Jesus who end up telling Jesus how we want to follow him. We want to follow Jesus, but we want to do it on our terms.
And what does that say about us? What does it say about us that we are people who want to follow Jesus, but we want to be the ones who set the agenda for the way we are going to follow him? Well, I think it says that we are human.
Monday, February 16, 2009
why Sunday is the easiest day of the week
I recognize that it has been a while since I have posted, well over a month. Given the fact that my previous post promised more consistent blogging and this blog represents something far less consistent, I must be forced to admit that I have not yet mastered the idea of blogging. Life has gotten busier, no doubt about that, Josiah learning to walk and talk, not to mention the fact that everyday I am surprised by some new layer of my position. That is what drove me here today.
I find that the easiest day of the week is Sunday...by a landslide. If you are a pastor this might, I guess, make sense, but my guess is most people won't get it. But you see Sunday is neat and tidy. I wake up on a Sunday and...my sermon is written and ready, my partners in ministry prepare the rest of the details, I don't have extra meetings or appointments. I simply wake up, clean up, and stand up and "do what I do." Of course, there is much more that goes into a Sunday, conversing with people, listening to ideas and making decisions on the fly (not something I recommend), meeting new people and hearing people tell me the stories of their lives. By Sunday, I have everything figured out (read a bit of sarcasm). When I stand up on Sunday's my ideas are as clear as they are going to be. When I greet my brothers and sisters, I do as one who wants to welcome them into our community. All of my Sunday stations put me in a position to be clear and hospitable.
Now, enter Monday through Saturday. This is a different story. Monday through Saturday I sit in the mess of life. I don't mean other people's lives, but my life, your life, our life...this thing we call life is messy and I live in it, just as everyone does, I guess, every day of the week. I sit in the mess of life's questions, not just because I am wondering and discovering, but I want to help other people wonder and discover as well. I wrestle with ideas about following Jesus and wonder why I seem to do it with a limp all the time and wonder how I should go about helping people discover a communal life with God (and in writing communal I realized that the word I've used most frequently in this post is I, so apparently I have a long way to go too).
What I mean to say, is that I am realizing that following Jesus well, really well, is all about living in all kinds of tension. Created for purposes we won't fulfill, being a cracked version of who and what I'm supposed to, bent toward doing my own thing than ever wanting to submit to anything, and all the while being remade in the image of God, being restored back to the kind of creature I'm supposed to be. And that makes life messy. (That sounded really trite when I just wrote it, sorry).
Pastoring broken-but-being-fixed people in a broken-but-being-fixed world as a broken-but-being-fixed person myself means that Monday through Saturday I don't have it all figured out. Things don't always happen properly, and I don't always respond with great aplomb (thanks Andy Bernard). So, as a friend of mine is continually saying, we just have to respond to Jesus. Though I am, in some ways, a vision kind of guy, I am finding myself further and further away from a clear picture of preferred futures. But that is the nice thing about being a part of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, the preferred future is already written and the vision is cast. My job in life is to be faithful in moving toward Jesus toward the Kingdom. My second job is to help those I love to do the same thing.
On my wall, I have a picture labeled leadership. The caption says, A leader is...it continues. But I covered it up. It now reads, A leader is TBD. I'm going to keep trying to respond to Jesus. I'll answer the "a leader is" question, when I get to where I'm going...or at least a bit further down the road.
I find that the easiest day of the week is Sunday...by a landslide. If you are a pastor this might, I guess, make sense, but my guess is most people won't get it. But you see Sunday is neat and tidy. I wake up on a Sunday and...my sermon is written and ready, my partners in ministry prepare the rest of the details, I don't have extra meetings or appointments. I simply wake up, clean up, and stand up and "do what I do." Of course, there is much more that goes into a Sunday, conversing with people, listening to ideas and making decisions on the fly (not something I recommend), meeting new people and hearing people tell me the stories of their lives. By Sunday, I have everything figured out (read a bit of sarcasm). When I stand up on Sunday's my ideas are as clear as they are going to be. When I greet my brothers and sisters, I do as one who wants to welcome them into our community. All of my Sunday stations put me in a position to be clear and hospitable.
Now, enter Monday through Saturday. This is a different story. Monday through Saturday I sit in the mess of life. I don't mean other people's lives, but my life, your life, our life...this thing we call life is messy and I live in it, just as everyone does, I guess, every day of the week. I sit in the mess of life's questions, not just because I am wondering and discovering, but I want to help other people wonder and discover as well. I wrestle with ideas about following Jesus and wonder why I seem to do it with a limp all the time and wonder how I should go about helping people discover a communal life with God (and in writing communal I realized that the word I've used most frequently in this post is I, so apparently I have a long way to go too).
What I mean to say, is that I am realizing that following Jesus well, really well, is all about living in all kinds of tension. Created for purposes we won't fulfill, being a cracked version of who and what I'm supposed to, bent toward doing my own thing than ever wanting to submit to anything, and all the while being remade in the image of God, being restored back to the kind of creature I'm supposed to be. And that makes life messy. (That sounded really trite when I just wrote it, sorry).
Pastoring broken-but-being-fixed people in a broken-but-being-fixed world as a broken-but-being-fixed person myself means that Monday through Saturday I don't have it all figured out. Things don't always happen properly, and I don't always respond with great aplomb (thanks Andy Bernard). So, as a friend of mine is continually saying, we just have to respond to Jesus. Though I am, in some ways, a vision kind of guy, I am finding myself further and further away from a clear picture of preferred futures. But that is the nice thing about being a part of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, the preferred future is already written and the vision is cast. My job in life is to be faithful in moving toward Jesus toward the Kingdom. My second job is to help those I love to do the same thing.
On my wall, I have a picture labeled leadership. The caption says, A leader is...it continues. But I covered it up. It now reads, A leader is TBD. I'm going to keep trying to respond to Jesus. I'll answer the "a leader is" question, when I get to where I'm going...or at least a bit further down the road.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
back and forward
To date, 2008 (that rhymes if you are reading aloud, if you are not, please begin again out loud) has been the most eventful year of all my years. I was going to put together some kind of reflective list of events, but Andrew's wonderful posts on albums frightens me from trying to measure up so mine will take paragraph form.
Even though, technically, Josiah was born in 2007, given the "New Year's Eve-ity" of his arrival I am going to call that 2008. (I don't think I have to use the same criteria as the IRS but I will get back to you on that.) Josiah's life is now officially a year old and I think he's happy with it. For the purposes of this blog, I am happy with it. The process of dad-ing has taught me a lot about sacrifice and love, mostly though I guess from observing his mom.
Also, I graduated seminary in 2008. The prospect of changing degrees from what might be termed (incorrectly, I think) the grand pooh-bah of seminary degrees to what might be termed (incorrectly, I think) the grand pooh-bah's step brother of seminary degrees was actually an easy decision. I had no idea why I was choosing the new direction, I just knew it was a good decision. (See below) I learned much during my time at Trinity. Extra special thanks to friends and mentors who walked with me through the four hardest years of trying to listen and watch for God that I've had.
In retrospect, had I not decided to get a different degree, I would not now live in New York City. The biggest event in our married life involved a moving truck, three large metal pods, a minivan (oh yeah, I caved and got a minivan this year too) full of people and possessions, and enough anxiety to make Joe Montana nervous under pressure. I accepted a pastoral position in Brooklyn, but for the single-digit number of visitors to this blog, you all already know that.
The question I keep being asked, Can you believe you live where you do?, is a common thought in my head. Yet it is testimony to the fact that this life with God is never boring and that we should in fact expect the unexpected. We have made a number of "risky" decisions this year and it is safe to say that 2008 will go down as one of the best of our lives.
Looking forward, I have some goals for this year. I sense some areas in my life that I want to learn to do better. To that end, I have given myself a writing assignment to sharpen my skills with this keyboard. My goal is to make a bit of weekly progress on the project. Thus, the blog entries over the next 8-9 months will likely take shape around this project. Advent was a difficult time to find time to write, but my hope is that I will develop a stronger ability to discipline myself to refine thoughts until they are word-worthy.
Other goals...
1. (okay, I have caved on the list idea) Explore the city...expect some blogging on this.
2. Read, at least, two books a month outside of sermon related reading.
3. Master the art of cooking. (This is probably impossible, but at least master some good dishes and techniques).
That's all for now.
ag
Even though, technically, Josiah was born in 2007, given the "New Year's Eve-ity" of his arrival I am going to call that 2008. (I don't think I have to use the same criteria as the IRS but I will get back to you on that.) Josiah's life is now officially a year old and I think he's happy with it. For the purposes of this blog, I am happy with it. The process of dad-ing has taught me a lot about sacrifice and love, mostly though I guess from observing his mom.
Also, I graduated seminary in 2008. The prospect of changing degrees from what might be termed (incorrectly, I think) the grand pooh-bah of seminary degrees to what might be termed (incorrectly, I think) the grand pooh-bah's step brother of seminary degrees was actually an easy decision. I had no idea why I was choosing the new direction, I just knew it was a good decision. (See below) I learned much during my time at Trinity. Extra special thanks to friends and mentors who walked with me through the four hardest years of trying to listen and watch for God that I've had.
In retrospect, had I not decided to get a different degree, I would not now live in New York City. The biggest event in our married life involved a moving truck, three large metal pods, a minivan (oh yeah, I caved and got a minivan this year too) full of people and possessions, and enough anxiety to make Joe Montana nervous under pressure. I accepted a pastoral position in Brooklyn, but for the single-digit number of visitors to this blog, you all already know that.
The question I keep being asked, Can you believe you live where you do?, is a common thought in my head. Yet it is testimony to the fact that this life with God is never boring and that we should in fact expect the unexpected. We have made a number of "risky" decisions this year and it is safe to say that 2008 will go down as one of the best of our lives.
Looking forward, I have some goals for this year. I sense some areas in my life that I want to learn to do better. To that end, I have given myself a writing assignment to sharpen my skills with this keyboard. My goal is to make a bit of weekly progress on the project. Thus, the blog entries over the next 8-9 months will likely take shape around this project. Advent was a difficult time to find time to write, but my hope is that I will develop a stronger ability to discipline myself to refine thoughts until they are word-worthy.
Other goals...
1. (okay, I have caved on the list idea) Explore the city...expect some blogging on this.
2. Read, at least, two books a month outside of sermon related reading.
3. Master the art of cooking. (This is probably impossible, but at least master some good dishes and techniques).
That's all for now.
ag
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
