A good conversation happening here

So there is some good conversations happening on our community engagement blog. Check it out!

Recently, the conversation has been revolving around urban gardening. Pretty interesting stuff.

Other things I'm excited about....

1. Memorial Day at Yankee Stadium. Check out where I get to sit.
2. The summer of the grill. I've got 13 burger recipes that are the backbone of a, hopefully, great summer menu!
3. Hopefully making some new friends and connections at the Greenmarket which starts in just a few weeks.
4. The rest of this day off. (Except the dentist appt. I've got.)

where my treasure is...

I'm sitting today in Madison Square Park, reading and thinking about God's Kingdom and what it says to me, to us, to the city...

I'm wrestling with it all as I watch evidence of our dominant cultural values walk by...affluence, power, beauty, leisure. Today I find it easy to believe Jesus when he says that following him will mean that we will be misunderstood, maligned and rejected.

How can the gospel of the Kingdom of God break into this well oiled machine of a culture?

Believing that it has, I come back to the question, how do I/We embody this Kingdom way? 

The cost of following Jesus will inevitably involve his Spirit redefining and reshaping some of our strongest held desires...belonging and acceptance, recognition and notoriety, security and happiness. The very desires on display here in the park. There are more. I'm reminded today that the Kingdom life is about putting myself to death and walking in a new kind of life with Jesus.

I'm not content with knowing (as we narrowly define knowing) about the Kingdom. I want to live it. And now the questions start again...

A God-flooded World

Recently, I've been working through Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. (I know, to my shame, I'm just now getting to it). Anyway, I came across a couple quotes of his that hit me upside the head and hopefully it will do so for you as well!

He writes this...

[God]"is one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right."

and this...

"Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us."

What does this say to those of us, and those times for each of us, who think the world is just going to 'hell in a handbasket?' I think Willard is challenging the popularly held belief among many of us that says that the world is just going downhill and so we just have to hang on till God comes down and puts everyone in their place, cosmically.

Willard seems to be suggesting that it is the exact opposite. That God, having created everything, has left his indelible imprint on the landscape of our world and, IN ADDITION, having come to us in the person of Jesus, has brought his Kingdom of righteousness, truth, goodness, and beauty into his world that is broken by sin.

This is a reality shaping idea. How would our life with God be different if we live out this belief? How would our faith communities change if we grappled with this reality as part of our life together?

Things to be thinking about...because, as Willard says, unless we do, the gospel of Jesus hasn't gripped our imaginations yet.

niebuhr and justice...

In a 1950 essay entitled, “The Spirit of Justice,” Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the following:

“Love in the form of philanthropy is, in fact, a lower level than a high form of justice. For philanthropy is given to those who make no claims against us, who do not challenge our goodness or disinterestedness. An act of philanthropy may thus be an expression of both power and moral complacency. An act of justice on the other hand requires the humble recognition that the claim that another makes against us may be legitimate.”

Earlier in the essay, he rightly notes that Christians are called to abide by the law of love as in doing so we fulfill all the laws of God (cf. Romans 13:8). Niebuhr is comparing the merits of love displayed through philanthropy (or charity) and justice. He asserts that between the two, charity is a less loving than justice. It is justice that is the highest form of love.

Niebuhr claims that philanthropy is given to those who, one, ‘make no claims against us’ and two, cannot ‘challenge our goodness or disinterestedness.’ He suggests that charity  can be an expression of power. What he means is that when I give resources to someone in need, be it a homeless man on the street or an orphan in a poverty stricken country, I must recognize that doing so gives me the upper hand. Saying nothing of how I use the advantage, my charity positions me as the wealthy, or, for the moment, wealthier, benefactor in the relationship. In that way, the one receiving my charitable gift (having been given a gift) is not in a position to ask us for anything (making no claim against me) and they are also not in a position to challenge my motivation for giving charitably. (Imagine a homeless man taking some money and then accusing you of some bad motive. Wouldn’t you want to take the money back? Wouldn’t we most likely consider that our right, to retrieve what was ungratefully received?)

Niebuhr also suggests that charity does not necessarily indicate care or love for the recipient of the gift. The giver of charity is never challenged as to the level of concern they show for the receiver of their charity, the gift is the end. In fact, Niebuhr claims, charity is potentially evidence of a complete lack of moral concern. It could be nothing more than a self-congratulatory gesture.

Justice, on the other hand, is not possible from a position of self-interest. Justice, necessarily requires ‘the humble recognition that the claim that another makes against us may be legitimate.’ In other words, justice deals with larger issues of what is right, good, fair etc. The labels ‘benefactor’ and ‘beneficiary’ do not carry the same weight. Instead, the benefactor must recognize that personal and social changes must take place in order to ensure the spread of justice.

An act of justice is a way of pursuing what is actually good, and not just good for me. It seeks to promote the interests of all parties, or all of society, and not just self-interest. It takes a genuine interest in the other, and seeks to live accordingly, rather than coolly dismissing all claims others make on one’s life.

Interesting thoughts.

Certainly, charity is a good thing. It is a way of shaping our lives towards generosity. It is not something to be avoided. But charity is not an end. Niebuhr rightly challenges us to see that love without justice is not love. Love that is disinterested in the other is just selfishness. Love that exerts power is still more about me than you. He challenges us to see that love is not just a disembodied feeling, but takes on the tangible form of justice in the lives of people and in society. He challenges us the same way God challenged Israel through the prophet Isaiah. External displays of religiosity and devotion are detestable to God. Righteousness and faithfulness come through the promotion of justice.

What do you think?

realizing limitations

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?

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.

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.