In the mist of the becoming...

Moved the blog.

2010-02-07T09:48:00.003-07:00

The posts here will remain for however long Blogger will keep 'em, but the blog itself has moved over to http://jannalouise.thehoskincentre.com/blogs/hermiting/ - you can put it in your RSS reader or what-have-you if you still want to keep up with what's going on here.

It's been a while...

2008-08-14T23:34:00.004-06:00

My apologies. To leave this blog alone for so long was impolite to my readers. Perhaps it's a sign of where I've been lately - spiritually-speaking, that is.

I was browsing through this blog and my Daily Devotions blog (linked in sidebar), in search of pieces that I might add to my collection of writing that could be suited for inclusion in a portfolio, and I was surprised. Surprised at how deep I was able to get, surprised at the wisdom I was reading. More than once, I wondered at where that came from.

Of course, it came from God. And there could well be more he wants to give me, if I would just pay more attention to him.

I have need of spending time with him. Regular time. Just me & God, hanging out, conversing, existing.

Life has been eventful in the last months, but no amount of busyness can excuse my neglect of my spiritual life. God is my all, my everything.

It's time for me to start treating him properly.

I wonder, sometimes, what goes through people's heads...

2007-12-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

On November 23, I posted the following to ISCABBS' Bible And Christianity forum:

Just for the heck of it, go read the letter from Bishop Venables (who I kind of like as a person) on the Essentials web site: http://www.anglicanessentials.ca/letter_venables_112307.htm

Also, read the statement from the Anglican Church's General Synod: http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2007-11-17_as.news

For an interesting take, check out the blurb on the Anglicans Online site: http://anglicansonline.org/news/index.html

And, of course, the whole thing wouldn't be complete without the article in the Anglican Journal: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/bishop-leaves-canadian-church-for-south-american-province/

*sigh*

I'll see where things go here in Calgary. This really sucks. I'm enjoying being on the music team for my church. I don't particularly want to leave, but I can't work at a liberal church and attend an Essentials church if it comes to that kind of decision... I really wish people would all just smarten up and think about we "minions" when they do this sort of thing.

Since I made this post, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada has clarified things in a pastoral letter, and that letter has made me feel much better about the situation. However, in the meantime...

Nov 29, 2007 13:55 from Westerner to Jubilee
Hey, how are you doing? I was at the Burlington conference - really great time, and very enlightening. The next day, our minister was called before the bishop since it was posted on a blog (A blog!!!!) that our minister was appointed prolocutor. He hadn't accepted the appointment. Much ado about nothing, but it was scary. We are continuing to have pressure on our minister and our church, and we can't help but feel singled out. What did you think of the materials at the anglican essentials website?
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Nov 29, 2007 13:58 from Jubilee to Westerner
I'm doing pretty well. I think that the Anglican Essentials people aren't quite "on the ball" so far as everything goes, but then, I don't particularly agree with anybody at this point. I definitely think that the whole Southern Cone aspect is completely ridiculous and a very poor choice of action.
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Nov 30, 2007 14:59 from Westerner to Jubilee
Really? What do you recommend as an alternative?
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Nov 30, 2007 15:09 from Jubilee to Westerner
Um, not breaking Communion with one's own church, for starters. It is illegal within the Anglican Church for anyone to perform priestly activities without the express permission of the bishop of that location. To resign from the ACC and then join a different country's church and expect to be permitted to continue to act as Anglican clergy is ridiculous and I seriously doubt that the rest of the Anglican Communion will stand for it.

There has been far too much "straying from the path" within the Anglican Church of Canada at this point. And I'm not siding with the liberals or the conservatives here. Extremists (on both sides) are driving the church to ruin. I seriously doubt that anyone actually knows what they're fighting about anymore. And that is incredibly distressing.

I don't have an alternative, but outright disobeying the law of the church is definitely not a good choice.
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Nov 30, 2007 15:21 from Westerner to Jubilee
Ok, outright disobeying the law of the church. That is what the Anglican Church of Canada is doing with allowing same-sex blessings, and it runs deeper than that. Have you seen Kendall Harmon's site, TitusOneNine? He has a lot of good things to write. His video is on the front page of the Anglican Essentials site, and it explains fairly well what the fundamental problem with the ACC and TEC is. Both of these churches are contravening the laws and canons of the worldwide Anglican church, and more importantly, they are perverting the word of God. I am not sure if you see it this way. It is not Anglican Essentials that are breaking communion with the worldwide Anglican church, it is the ACC that is doing so. Anglican Essentials and the offer fromt he SOuthern Cone allows biblically faithful Anglicans to stay within their denomination without breaking communion with the world body.
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Nov 30, 2007 15:51 from Jubilee to Westerner
We disagree on this.

Aside from the fact that I disagree about whether or not it is lawful to allow same-sex blessings within the church (I don't believe it is core doctrine, and I don't believe it *should* be core doctrine, which means that it *cannot* be held as canon law of the church), it would be better to merely split from the current Anglican Church of Canada and become another Anglicized denomination. That or convince the liberals to leave.

It has simply become, as I've put it elsewhere, a case of "You're making me mad, so I'm taking my toys and going home."

I'm sick of the fighting. People talk about the homosexuality thing not being the real issue, but it is. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the sticking point. And I fail to see how allowing same-sex blessings causes anyone to cease being Christian. Which (Christianity) should be our primary concern.
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Dec 1, 2007 02:21 from Westerner to Jubilee
I am truly saddened that you feel that allowing same-sex blessings is not in conflict with being Christian. Under what conditions do you consider a person to be a Christian, and what is defining about a Christian, apart from a member of any other faith?
May I ask you if you think adultery is OK? Child molesting? Just where do you draw the line, or do you draw the line?
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Dec 3, 2007 14:21 from Jubilee to Westerner
Adultery is wrong. Child molestation is wrong. These are not in any way similar to homosexual relationships, which are exactly the same as heterosexual relationships except for the fact that both people are the same physical gender.

Christians are followers of Christ, plain and simple. A Christian believes that Christ is God's Son, God incarnate, that he came to show us the Kingdom and help us to understand how desperately we need him in our lives. A Christian believes that Christ died on the cross and rose again, that death may have no hold on us any more. All that is stated in the apostle's and Nicene creed is what is necessary to believe in order to have salvation. Pardon me if I see nothing in either creed regarding homosexuality.

Above and beyond these very basic tenets of our faith, a Christian - one who follows Christ - is called upon to obey the two great commandments: love the Lord your God with all you are and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

It is so easy to be self-righteous about things we have not had to deal with, either personally or by virtue of being close with those who deal with them on a daily basis.
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Dec 5, 2007 14:29 from Westerner to Jubilee
Except for the first and last paragraph, I agree with you. Your first paragraph is wrong, homosexuality is called an abomination in scripture and no scripture can be brought forth endorsing it. However, numerous scripture can be brought forth endorsing fidelity in marriage and abstinence in singleness.

You last paragraph sounds accusatory - are you calling me self-righteous? That is the implication in what you have written. How would you know of the people I know personally or have worked with? That is rather presumptuous, don't you think?

There are many things that are a part of being a Christian, and all are sinners, all have sinned and those who do not repent and turn from their sin will be condemned. That is what scripture says, and if you really want I can quote chapter and verse on this teaching.

We are not to engage in homosexual relationships. Just as we are not to engage in adulterous relationships, incestuous relationships, etc. To do so is sinful. To continue to do so is sinful. If a man commits adultery, repents and commits adultery again, has he truly repented? If a person loves God, can he or she continue to sin, over and over, and say that they have repented and turned from their ways?

I suppose a question to you would be, do you consider homosexual relations to be sinful? If you do, then we may have something to discuss. If you do not, then I cannot say anything that will convince you otherwise.
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Dec 5, 2007 15:30 from Jubilee to Westerner
I have seen nobody bring forth an argument that I can agree with wholeheartedly on the sinfulness of committed homosexual relationships. It is *not* clear to me, or to many other people in the Christian world, that homosexuality is a sin. Sexual orientation is not something that is ever tackled by the Bible, and I challenge you to show me where it is.

When it comes right down to it, I reiterate: homosexual relationships are identical to heterosexual relationships, except for the physical gender of those involved. If you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that homosexual relationships are, in fact, wildly different from heterosexual relationships, fine. But the many people I know who are homosexual are in long-term relationships (lasting over two years in duration - longer than many heterosexual marriages).

My last paragraph is not necessarily accusatory. I don't claim to know anything about you, save what church you attend and that you are married. But I do see the general atmosphere (on both sides of the debate) as falling into the category of "I'm better than you because..." - and that is sickening, to say the least.

The Bible says *nothing* about homosexual *relationships* - not as we see them today. The Bible talks about the kind of "homosexuality" that was rampant at the time, consisting primarily of adult males engaging in sexual activities with younger males. Some of this was pedophilia, some of it was not. Very rarely (if ever) was it an equal "relationship".

I am specifically choosing *not* to "decide" whether or not homosexuality is a sin. That's none of my business. It's God's. I certainly did agree with you on this point at one time, but over the years I've had a lot of opinions challenged - and that's all it was, an opinion. Sometimes my opinions change, sometimes they don't. My opinion on homosexuality hasn't changed so much as become more open. I'm open to the possibility that it may not be a sin to be in a committed homosexual relationship. This in no way equates to the endorsement of such a thing, any more than it condemns it.
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Dec 5, 2007 20:39 from Westerner to Jubilee
If you wish to believe your way and think your way is totally right, then there is nothing I can do. If you are looking for information, I can make a suggestion or two.
If you go to BibleGateway.com and do a search on 'homosexuality', you will find:
1. Leviticus 18:22
"Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin.
Leviticus 18:21-23 (in Context) Leviticus 18 (Whole Chapter)
2. Leviticus 20:13
"If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.
Leviticus 20:12-14 (in Context) Leviticus 20 (Whole Chapter)
3. 1 Corinthians 6:9
Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality,
1 Corinthians 6:8-10 (in Context) 1 Corinthians 6 (Whole Chapter)
4. 1 Timothy 1:10
The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching
1 Timothy 1:9-11 (in Context) 1 Timothy 1 (Whole Chapter)

Depending on the translation you will get some of these, or none at all. In all references to marriage, none mention two men together in a marriage and all show marriage being between a man and a woman. Again, you can do a search.
I am not telling you what to think - you are intelligent enough to figure things out on your own.
What is more the the heart of the matter for me is that this is just one small tip of the iceberg. I don't know if you have seen the Kendall Harmon video I referred to in my post in Bible and Christianity. It may help explain things better than I can.
I hope you don't think that I am judging you - it is not my place to do so, and I am not. I am here to witness for Christ and His teaching, upholding His word as expressed in the Holy Bible.
Peace in Christ, and God bless.
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Dec 5, 2007 21:45 from Jubilee to Westerner
A couple of points on this:

The New Covenant dismisses the insanity of attempting to keep all of the miniscule laws of Leviticus. You cannot pick and choose. If you wear mixed fabrics, then you are not obeying the law, and to hold fast to the passages about "homosexuality" is disingenuous, at best.

Depending on context and the bias of the translator, you will end up with various wordings of all of those Bible passages. The very fact that not all translations include "homosexuality" should be a clue that perhaps it's not as cut-and-dried as people are attempting to make it out to be.

I don't think you're judging me. I do think that you aren't understanding where I sit on this issue, and I don't know if that's because you don't want to or because you can't. I've stated my position more than once, both here and in Bible, and the fact of the matter is that I have *chosen* to refuse to take sides. Throwing a few verses at me (when they've been used before; your points and arguments aren't exactly new to me) is not going to sway me one way or the other. I have settled on a position, and while I suppose some would say that my position is not a position at all, it is absolutely something that I feel very strongly about.

Perhaps I am simply too "post-modernist" for those who *have* made a decision one way or the other. I see my position as being a clear-cut decision. And I made it using the information I'd been given and had discovered myself. Not everyone is going to come to the same conclusion, and for me, that is perfectly fine. Obviously it's not okay for everyone in the world. That saddens me, but I can't do anything about it.
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Dec 6, 2007 11:41 from Westerner to Jubilee
I could go on and on, but there is no point. I stand by scripture. You have not responded to my challenge, and likely it is because you cannot and will not. You can name-call all you like, it does not matter to me. I will continue to adhere to Biblical faithfulness and the authority of scripture in these matters. You are going your way. I am going mine.
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Dec 6, 2007 14:02 from Jubilee to Westerner
What was your challenge? I think I missed it somewhere.

I have not called you names.

Obviously this does matter to you, as you instigated this conversation, not me. I again note that you seem not to understand my position on this matter, and while I do not expect it, it does sadden me somewhat.

Peace & Blessings to you.
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Dec 7, 2007 16:24 from Westerner to Jubilee
You obviously havenot read my messages to you, which saddens me. It shows a deep lack of respect for anyonr\e who holds a differing view than yours. I know your position clearly and thoroughly. You however, cannot support your position nor can you understand mine. Again, more sadness. But as it does not matter to you, and you are clearly intransigent in this, then I do not care to discuss it with you further. If I thought that some clarity would come through to you, and from you, I would continue. But you refuse to accept scripture, you refuse to be considerate in your writings, and I refuse to carry on this way with someone who has a different religion than I do. Please, do not trouble yourself to write again. I see no point in discussing it further with you, as you have set in stone your position, and refuse to listen to anyone else.
May God have mercy.
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Dec 8, 2007 10:37 from Jubilee to Westerner
I have, indeed, read your messages to me. I did not see a "challenge". If you would re-state it, perhaps that would help.

I understand your position, and at no time have I said that you are wrong in your belief that homosexual relationships are sinful by nature; I have merely stated that I do not agree. Since I also do not agree that scripture is absolutely, 100% clear on this issue, that should not be a surprise.

At no time have I tried to make you change your beliefs on this issue. I have merely attempted to explain my position. However, I stand by my statement that you do not understand my position. My reason for this is your continued attempts to change my mind. I do not believe that you came into this conversation (which you, in fact, started) in order to learn anything. Rather, I believe that you began this conversation with a specific agenda - that agenda being my return to the truth as you see it.

Remember, I once shared your views. I do not think that I will ever go all the way to the "other side", but I do refuse to join in the name-calling and other non-Christian actions that are being taken by both "sides" in this debate. The reason being that I don't think either "side" is behaving in a truly Christian manner towards the other, and I don't think either "side" is completely correct, either. At the same time, I do not claim to know the answers or the truth in this matter.

I continue to trust in my God - Father, Son, and Spirit - and believe that he will lead me to Truth as I require its knowledge.

Peace & Blessings to you in all you do. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always. Amen.
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The conversation may or may not be finished at this point; we shall see. I post this here to illustrate what can happen in a "debate" of this nature.

The post's title is precisely my question here. What is going on in this man's head? Does he truly not see what I am saying, or does he understand and not care, or what? To my mind, a reasonable person would not respond to "I disagree, and here's why" with accusations of disrespect and name-calling. A reasonable person would respond with "That's interesting. Have you thought of..." - thus continuing a respectful debate.

Instead, he began a conversation with me and, it seems, became frustrated when I did not respond to his arguments the way he wanted me to. And so he is going to take his toys and go home. He doesn't want to play with me anymore.

I don't mind a good debate - I actually kind of enjoy them. I just wish people would keep emotional reactions out of things and properly *debate*, is all.

The Inner Voice of Love, by Henri J. M. Nouwen :: New series of posts

2007-09-01T21:22:00.000-06:00

I recently purchased a copy of Henri J. M. Nouwen's The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom. Today, I began to read it.

In the Introduction to the book, Nouwen writes, "This book is my secret journal. It was written during the most difficult period of my life, from December 1987 to June 1988. That was a time of extreme anguish, during which I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my life. ...I had come face to face with my own nothingness." (p. xiii)

Lost in depression and despair, Nouwen still found the strength to write about his struggles and the things he was learning about himself and his faith. The result, published years later, was this book I am now reading.

Nouwen suggests that the reader savour the book, not reading it all at once. Each entry is only a page or two long, and as the book itself was written over a long period of time, it should also be read over a long period of time. He also suggests using the table of contents to choose which entry to read.

And so, as a strong believer that the author knows his or her work better than anyone else, I am taking Nouwen's suggestion and plan to read one entry a week, on Saturday. I will then take the following week to absorb, process, and act upon what I read.

Next Saturday, you can expect a post on the entry titled Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection. It will include my initial reactions and prayers as well as a summary of my week.

Wow. Definitely been too long...

2007-08-02T21:20:00.000-06:00

I finally had some personal prayer-time tonight, something I've been wanting to focus on but have been putting off a lot.

I like to begin with words and then I wait for pictures or words from God. And tonight, there were two pictures. I'm posting them in a few places in case they were for someone I know. I have no idea if they're for me or for someone else; I just had the impression that I should post them. So here you go:

A misty, hazy bluish-gray scene, with dark, almost-black trees in the background. It's a field. A family, all dressed in white - a father, a mother, a little boy, and a girl. Wearing old-fashioned (early 1900s) clothing.
A blue and green frog, crawling up a bank. Very slimy for some reason, seemed to have a lot of mucous on it.

If either of these images has any meaning for you, please do let me know!

Strange World

2007-07-10T00:16:00.000-06:00

Strange World (Sarah McLachlan)

We walk without a sound across a barren landscape
Your eyes are twisted down to a dew entrailed ground
We watch the stars as they slowly fade away and in the clearing sky I see
The cold stone face of morning setting in on me
It's a strange world
It's a very strange world that leaves me
Holding on to nothing when there's nothing left to lose
Your touch is cold and damp, the devil's in your eyes
I wonder why I always let you lead me on this way
'Cause you see only what you want to see
You feel only what you want to
And I am on the outside of your strange world
It's a strange world
It's a very strange world that leaves me
Holding on to nothing when there's nothing left to lose
We're walking hand in hand, we'll walk this way forever
Our eyes have risen to the water's edge watching with the tides
The stars have fallen to another day and the sun warms our path to
Find the reasons leave us far behind in our strange world
It's a strange world
It's a very strange world that leaves me
Holding on to nothing when there's nothing left to lose

My day was very good. I got a lot done at work today. I stayed really late, but I wanted to get the project I was working on to a good stopping point, and I had nowhere else to be, really.

Taking my medication and tracking my time really helped today. I think tomorrow will also be a productive day, work-wise.

It's a strange world / It's a very strange world that leaves me / Holding on to nothing when there's nothing left to lose

I feel like I have nothing to lose at this point. Nothing to lose that cannot be regained. I am my self, not fully integrated as yet, but growing more and more into unity with every passing day. I have my faith, which has never failed me and will not fail me in the future. I feel... content, and whole. Free, I suppose, though I'm not really certain what freedom really feels like.

The other song that keeps calling out to me is by Traced Image, but it's on their new CD so I've only heard it at concerts so far - no lyrics to post. But part of it goes, And the words escaping me to tell you how I feel... a mystery.

That's how I feel right now. A mystery. The words are gone, floating somewhere, I don't know where. I want to put them down on the page, but I can't find them. I think they don't exist. Not the ones I would need to really describe, really explain what I'm feeling right now.

Maybe this is a new stage in the Becoming that I've been working through for so long. I know the Becoming will never really end, but I'm always excited to see new stages come into being in my life. Learning more about who I am, what I need, what I was created for, who I was created to be. It's not easy, I know it's not easy - it's never easy, change... but it's exciting, and I'm learning to embrace it.

I'm on the cusp of something, I feel that much very clearly. I wish I could know it before it happens, but that's not what this is about.

So... breathing. In. Out. And singing, in my soul, in my spirit, in my mind, with my voice. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might! Heaven & earth are full of your glory! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!

Painting pictures on the page, in words. Trying to convey that which is inside, beyond words, beyond all forms of expression. How to describe something which can only be experienced?

Where is this leading? I do not know.

But I know I am Becoming, and that is good. And I know that God is leading me, molding me, growing me carefully, and that is best.

Peace & Blessings, all.

Revelations

2007-06-25T11:02:00.000-06:00

Thanks to some recent events in my life - events which do not require publicity here on this blog - I have come to the realisation that I have been placing God near the bottom of my list of priorities. That is, I have been ignoring some of his clear communications as I pursued my own interests. Which is actually kind of funny, since my interests really ought to be focused on his interests for me.

I'm sure my readers have discovered such things in their own lives at one point or another - perhaps more than once. But this revelation I have been given was rather humbling for me, and I feel the need to confess my ignorance so that I may, hopefully, become stronger for being accountable to those I may influence somewhere along the way.

I continue to hold that there are but two commands, given us by Christ that we may thoroughly be his true followers: love God with all we are, and love others as we love ourselves. By following these two commands, we follow the ten commandments.

I have not loved God with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbours as I love myself. I have not loved myself as I ought.

I am truly sorry, and I humbly repent.

Christ beside me
I forgot he was there. Days have passed wherein he was not even a blip on my radar. As a result, I was more easily led into temptation. Without the awareness of Christ's presence in my life, I found it appealing to seek fulfillment elsewhere. This is not healthy. It does not promote love and is not love in any way, shape, or form.

Father guide me
I willfully ignored his guidance. I was not only led off of the path he set for me, I seriously debated wandering further than I have ever gone before. I wasn't trying to get away from him, and I wasn't thinking... there, that's the crux of it: I wasn't thinking. Since I wasn't seeking his guidance or watching for his signals and listening for his voice, I didn't even need to be tricked. I just went off without him, without a second thought.

Spirit hide me
For whatever reason, I was still protected from evil. Spirit covered me and held me safe through this time. Though I was unaware and uncaring, Spirit remained ever alert and ever loving. What a gracious God I serve!

I have come to realise that there are many people whom God has placed in my life for a reason. From my best friend, who accepts me regardless of the stupid things I do (which is an earthly representation of the love God has for me), to the amazing men whose marriages and personalities serve as examples of the kind of relationship and marriage I know I should be looking for myself (assuming marriage is in God's plan for me), I am blessed beyond anything anyone else could possibly ever attempt to give me.

June 22, 2007 - 7.56 p.m. - Airdrie.

Sometimes I wonder if I should try to have a life like other people seem to have. I know I'm not other people; that fact becomes abundantly more clear with every passing day.

And the more apparent my differences become, the more pointless it is to compare myself to other people.

The only label that truly defines me is "Janna."

And even then, I'm afraid I don't often feel particularly graceful these days.

I think it's partly a lack of right relationship with God that's causing my discontent. So often, I find, my sense of well-being depends fully on how much time I spend with him.

Three-in-One, my salvation be.

Gather 'round, encircle me.
Blessings pour and set me free.

I'm not sure just what my penance should be, nor even if I should attempt something of the sort. But I feel the need to demonstrate my repentance, to show myself as well as my God that I am dedicated to my faith.

Prayer

2007-04-29T22:16:00.000-06:00

Far too many people think that when Christ said "ask and you will receive," he meant that you just have to ask for what you want and you'll get it - "Santa Claus in the sky".

So approach prayer from that angle.

Rather than looking at it as a petitional activity, look at it as a relational activity.

Prayer shouldn't be "God, here's what I want you to do for me, amen." It should be a conversation. Approach God in humility. Tell him about your life, feel free to ask him questions ("Why did this happen?" "What job should I look for next?"), wait for him to make himself known. Praise him, worship him, tell him how wonderful he is, thank him for the things he gives you every day.

I think, if we approach prayer from this kind of perspective, it helps us grow closer to his heart, and then we are more able to ask for the things he truly wants for us.

Return.

2007-04-23T22:31:00.000-06:00

I went to Tehillah tonight, for the first time in a long time.

I'd been feeling "odd" lately, and I was hoping that perhaps God would help me make some sense of things if I went.

Besides, there's no such thing as too much church.

Worship.

Existing in the presence of God.

Feeling his presence, knowing he is in this place.

"It is finished."

and the veil is torn

from top to bottom.

The Father smiles

through his pained tears

"It has only begun."

A girl's face, upturned, eyes closed, cheeks wet with tears, smiling, arms raised. She is Spanish.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
The Israelites leaving Egypt (Exodus)

a story of captivity & pain.
a story of prayer.
this is our story as well: whenever we are in captivity or pain, if we cry out to God, he will hear us.
a story of deliverance.
a story of promise.
God wants to do more than just deliver you FROM something, he wants to bring you TO something.

Satan tries to pull you back to what it was you left behind.

the Israelites left Egypt like a marching army.

Believe that a good God is leading you. Exodus 13.17-18

stuck in the middle - no way forward, no way back... except God led the Israelites into the place they found themselves.
- This isn't the shortcut; the shortcut brings us into conflict that might cause us to change our minds.
- God brings us to this point ON PURPOSE.

A good God is leading you. Even if the mess you're in is your own fault, remember that GOD IS GOOD, and HE IS LEADING YOU. Don't panic. Be patient - eventually you will get to where you are going. You will come into your promise.

Move forward. Exodus 14.5-15

Be still - be calm inside.
Move on - move forwards outside.

You are crippled by your past and paralyzed by your future.

Use what you have. Exodus 14.16-31

It happens with what you already have in your hand.

Your miracle is already in your hand.

God has already given you what you need.

It doesn't matter what it is, if it is in the hands of God, it can become deliverance or healing or sustenance or... whatever is necessary.

What I have, I give you, Lord.

A simple act of obedience.

past failure != future failure

Simplicity

2007-03-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that simplicity is not something that is easily come by these days. My best friend recently wrote a blog entry about her car crossing the 100,000km mark and related it to those milestones in her life that she has missed and those she has recognised.

I just spent an hour cleaning off my desk at work. It's something I do on a weekly basis, it seems, and I think it's an indication of how complex my job is. In other words, a messy desk = a busy job.

I also just moved house. I have a lot of stuff, and I am hoping to get a number of things gone as I unpack. My legs, back, arms, etc. - my whole body, it seems - is in pain. I think it's an indication of how desperately I need to simplify my life. Physical pain = a full life.

My busy job and my full life tend to obscure my faith. I don't mean that I forget my faith, or that I don't bother about God. I'm definitely always a Christian, and I do still spend time thinking about and even talking to God.

But I think my life and my job are both so complex that I miss the milestones each day - I miss God talking to me, I miss the chances that he gives me to just sit and exist in his presence.

I need to slow down, simplify my life and my job. It gets overwhelming, this constant movement that is in my life and in my brain. While God made me as I am, I think it is still my responsibility to slow down a bit here and there. Observe the speed limits a little more carefully. Accept that other people in the world aren't always on the same page I am, and enjoy the time that can give me to move through life at a calm, respectful pace.

Did I just say respectful?

Yes, respectful. Respectful of God's creation (including myself!) and of others' comfortable speeds.

Eventually I may grow to like slowness and simplicity.

Everything you want...

2007-01-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

I remember, when I was in University, I went with my church's youth group to a Christian club. The guy I liked at the time was playing in one of the bands that night.

I sat with my friends and listened to the music, and refused to go and speak to this guy because I was nervous and scared to do anything but sit there, frozen. It was good music, and I did buy a copy of their demo tape (which necessitated speaking to him).

What sticks with me is that one of my friends was - to put it bluntly - exasperated. She knew I liked this guy, she thought I should go talk to him, and she couldn't figure out why I wouldn't. She finally threw up her hands and said, "I don't understand you! Everything you want is right over there. Just reach out and take it. And you won't do anything!"

Well, my friendship with that particular guy is long over, and the friend who said that to me has long since returned to Germany (she was an exchange student).

But what she said - that remains.

"Everything you want is right over there. Just reach out and take it."

I remembered that today as I was mulling over my future and all I want to do with it. It made me wonder if I'm doing all that God wants me to do - if I'm reaching out and taking all that he has to offer to me. What I want is whatever God wants for me.

The thing is, it takes courage to do something about our wants and desires like that. It takes courage to reach out and take what we want. We think we need permission, we're worried people won't like us, we're afraid we might say or do something stupid.

But so what?

I mean, really - if we're following that which God has placed in our hearts, what does it matter if others laugh us off the stage?

God loves us no matter what. He wants only the best for us. We don't need permission to take what he is freely offering, we don't need to worry about him not liking us, and nothing we can say or do is stupid to him.

So - what is it you want? Do you want it enough to take the risk - to step out in faith, reach out and take it?

This is going to be my year for doing precisely that.

Accept what God is giving you, and join me in that adventure.

No way...

2007-01-08T01:01:00.000-07:00

Doing some quick research on the Celtic tree of life, as I am really rather entranced with the imagery of that which I posted earlier tonight.

http://mypage.direct.ca/a/ameehan/t/0008/index.html

The Tree of Life is one of the most popular and enduring motifs of Celtic art, found both on Celtic sculptured stone, metalwork and illuminated manuscripts.Portrayed variously variously as a golden bough, a vine, or mistletoe, the Celtic Tree of Life typically springs from a vessel representing Nature’s womb, branching from a series of Horns of Plenty.

I don’t know if you totally understand the importance… the impact… of this. I’ll spell it out for you.First of all, what I quoted from the web site is information I did not have until tonight.And so, here is all of the God-info you need in order to truly understand the amazing-ness of what that means.

My name
God’s Flourishing Graceful Warrior

Prophecy (September 2003)
And the Father says to you, Janna, that you’re in a time and a season when things are changing; when things are moving; when things are being reinterpreted around your life. There’s something new and fresh that the Father wants to give to you, Janna. There’s new experiences. Deepening. A broadening. There’s things the Father has for you that you haven’t received and haven’t fully unpacked. It’s almost like there’s containers and boxes and things around you that are still waiting to be unpacked. There’s things that the Father wants to give to you, that will give you life and truth and understanding and reference points that will be helpful for you. There’s this counsel and wisdom that the Father wants to speak into your life, that will help to interpret and reinterpret some things for you. The Lord says there’s things coming that will bring clarity and great reflective understanding back to you. You like reflection, Janna. You like reflective relationships. You like to do things that build clear communication. You like to be very honest and open; you like to be deep, and you like to be clear in understanding motivation, intentions, agendas, and things that are important in relationships. You’re a woman that’s got a lot of relationship skills, good people skills, good communication equipment in your life that the Father wants you to use to communicate His love, His truth, and His life to others. There’s many things that the Father wants to speak and communicate to your heart. And the Father says, “I am walking and waiting and nurturing you to come into a place when there’s a greater processing, a greater receiving, a greater ability for you to understand and to come into that which is yours in God.” There’s a lot of inheritance – a lot of spiritual inheritance and giftedness that the Father wants to put upon you. And, Janna, he wants to just – it’s almost like the misting rain, the mist that comes with a very green and fertile environment. The father says you do very well in very green and fertile environments when there’s a lot of support, a lot of strength, a lot of structure around you that gives to you a lot of momentum and helps to build and create out of your life the truth that can set many people free.

Anointing (August 2006)
**Chris was talking about people leaping onto altars that were burning, so that they could be melted down and turned into the new moulds for God’s new anointing for this generation. He said the words “life from death” and this image burst into being for me.**
As the flames die down, the altar is revealed to be a pile of ashes. But from the ashes comes new life - a tall tree grows up to maturity in an instant.
The tree is strong, and its trunk is solid & thick. Its leaves are green & full; no branch is bare!
And the ashes beneath it give it life.
The room is filled with a soft green light, as the light is filtered through the leaves of the tree.
Rooted in tradition, of which the foundation is Scripture - the Word of God. But something new… something new! And the tree is reaching to the heavens, praise be to God!

From August 8, 2006:
God only knows how many times I’ve prayed for this… thing, this… difference… to be gone. I never wanted to be alone, to feel alone.
I just wanted to be a part of things, to be included, to have friends.
But God had a different plan, and he gifted me with the ability to write, to communicate, to build relationships that are deep and personal.
Lathana, a creeping vine, gratitude, praise.
Janna Louise, God’s Flourishing Graceful Warrior.

I am a tree. I grow out of the ashes of a flaming altar – the altar of tradition. I am rooted in that tradition, nurtured and fed by the Word of God himself, and there is something new growing within me, bursting forth from the branches that give shade and shelter to those who need rest.
I am strong, a place for weary travellers to lean and regain their strength… a place for poets to sit and write… a place for dreamers to dream, and then step out from my shade, from my protective shelter, into the sun – into the world.

And I gather their stories, as they sit in my shade, as they confer with their Lord & Saviour. I gather their stories and digest them, record them, remember them, holding them within my mind.

Occasionally I speak. I tell these stories that I have collected, in new ways, to those who will benefit from them. I share the wisdom I have learned from these travellers, poets, dreamers, and I hope that my listeners come away with something of benefit.

The tree is where the flourishing part comes in. It is where the truth of the name my parents gave me comes to fruition. I have long known the warrior’s spirit, and my open acceptance is borne of the grace of God. It is the tree – life, knowledge, wisdom, rest, shelter – that is the final key to my earthly identity.
And it is the tree that joins the earthly to the spiritual, for the vine and the tree are both green, growing things. And my God-name is gratitude and praise, the crown of my life, the crown of my being. I praise and I am thankful, and God returns to me in kind – praise and gratitude for a job well done, a life well lived.

Do you see it now? Do you understand? The Celtic tree of life is often depicted as being a vine. My God-name (and also, I believe, Janna) can mean ‘creeping vine’, or at the very least, green growing things. (That is not exact, but I definitely learned that when I was researching my name a couple of years back.)

On top of that, the Celtic tree of life is typically depicted as coming out of a vessel of some kind, something that represents Nature’s womb. That picture that I had, of the burning altar that the tree grew out of, it correlates to this!

The imagery is all there. It all ties together. My name, my God-name, the prophecy that was given me, the picture I had last summer, my Scottish background, my fascination with Celtic artwork…I really am a tree. I truly am meant to bring life to others. What a startling realization to have right before bed.

I just rediscovered this piece.

2007-01-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

From August 8, 2006:

God only knows how many times I’ve prayed for this… thing, this… difference… to be gone. I never wanted to be alone, to feel alone.

I just wanted to be a part of things, to be included, to have friends.

But God had a different plan, and he gifted me with the ability to write, to communicate, to build relationships that are deep and personal.

Lathana, a creeping vine, gratitude, praise.

Janna Louise, God’s Flourishing Graceful Warrior.

~*~

I am a tree. I grow out of the ashes of a flaming altar – the altar of tradition. I am rooted in that tradition, nurtured and fed by the Word of God himself, and there is something new growing within me, bursting forth from the branches that give shade and shelter to those who need rest.

I am strong, a place for weary travellers to lean and regain their strength… a place for poets to sit and write… a place for dreamers to dream, and then step out from my shade, from my protective shelter, into the sun – into the world.

~*~

And I gather their stories, as they sit in my shade, as they confer with their Lord & Saviour. I gather their stories and digest them, record them, remember them, holding them within my mind.

~*~

Occasionally I speak. I tell these stories that I have collected, in new ways, to those who will benefit from them. I share the wisdom I have learned from these travellers, poets, dreamers, and I hope that my listeners come away with something of benefit.

~*~

The tree is where the flourishing part comes in. It is where the truth of the name my parents gave me comes to fruition. I have long known the warrior’s spirit, and my open acceptance is borne of the grace of God. It is the tree – life, knowledge, wisdom, rest, shelter – that is the final key to my earthly identity.

And it is the tree that joins the earthly to the spiritual, for the vine and the tree are both green, growing things. And my God-name is gratitude and praise, the crown of my life, the crown of my being. I praise and I am thankful, and God returns to me in kind – praise and gratitude for a job well done, a life well lived.

Who are you?

2007-01-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

Who are you? Do you know?

Anyone who's been reading this blog for long knows that identity is one of the key themes. "In the mist of the becoming..." is an incredibly descriptive title, for I write here about becoming my self - the me that I was created to be.

I drew the picture, above, during the sermon (and the remainder of the service) this morning at church. The sermon was titled "Seeking My Identity in 2007".

Do I base my identity on:
Who others think I am?
What I see in the mirror?
the family I came from?
Who am I?
I need to remember that God is the starting point.
God says, "The place you start is by looking at me."

He says, "You belong to me; you are mine."

Yes, who am I going to be this year?

How am I going to live my true identity?

When people see me, do they know whose child I am?

What changes do I need to make to be the person I was made to be?
Who am I and who do I plan to be?
Sermon Notes, January 7, 2007

This year, 2007, is already a good year for me. I expect it to continue, and I believe it will be a year of good things, good changes, newness and life.

It is important, this knowing oneself. We need to know ourselves if we are ever going to be able to properly fulfill our God-given destinies.

Destiny can be a scary word, I know.

destiny
noun
an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future
the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events (often personified as a woman); "we are helpless in the face of Destiny"
your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" [syn: fortune]
WordNet® 2.1, © 2005 Princeton University

But what does that really mean? What is our destiny, in the context of Christianity, with free will and everything else we talk about all the time?

We do all have a purpose. We were created in the Supreme burst of creativity. God wants us to know him, to know each other, and to know ourselves.

The beginning of a new year is a good time for us to take stock of ourselves, of our lives, to learn more about who we are and who we were created to be.

So, the picture I drew is of a girl looking at herself in a mirror. She is trying to learn who she is, to see her self. 2006 on the left, in the past, and 2007 on the right, ahead. The lyrics are from Switchfoot's song, This is Your Life:

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you’ve got now
Yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life are you who you want to be
This is your life are you who you want to be

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

And you had everything to lose

So is your life what you want it to be? Are you who you want to be?

More importantly...

Is your life what God wants it to be? Are you who he wants you to be?

What on Earth am I here for? - Days Four & Five.

2006-11-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

4. Made to Last Forever.

The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears. (p. 37)

5. Seeing Life from God's View.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. - Anais Nin (p. 41)
The way you see your life shapes your life. (p. 41)
Life is a test, life is a trust, and life is a temporary assignment. (p. 42)
Character is both developed and revealed by tests (p. 43)
In my own life I have noticed that God tests my faith through problems, tests my hope by how I handle possessions, and tests my love through people. (p. 43)
nothing is insignificant in your life. (p. 43)
he never allows the tests you face to be greater than the grace he gives you to handle them. (p. 44)
We are stewards of whatever God gives us. (p. 44)
affirmation... promotion... celebration (pp. 45-46)
there is a direct relationship between how I use my money and the quality of my spiritual life. (p. 46)

I do wonder if all of the things we deal with in life are really "tests" from God. Why do we need our hope tested? I can understand testing faith, to an extent, but hope? Especially when so many people in this world - including Christians - lack hope. And testing love... I don't like that idea at all. Love shouldn't require testing.

I'm sure I'll write a long piece on this at some point in the future. This is plenty for tonight. Just think about it.

What on Earth am I here for? - Days Two & Three.

2006-11-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

2. You Are Not an Accident.

God prescribed every single detail of your body. (p. 22)
Nothing in your life is arbitrary. (p. 23)
God had a plan in creating you. (p. 23)
...there are no illegitimate children. (p. 23)
God's purpose took into account human error, and even sin. (p. 23)
God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. (p. 23)
God's motive for creating you was his love. (p. 24)
Love is the essence of God's character. (p. 24)

3. What Drives Your Life?

Many people are driven by guilt. (p. 27)
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it. (p. 28)
God specializes in giving people a fresh start. (p. 28)
Most people are driven by resentment and anger. (p. 28)
Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. (p. 28)
Many people are driven by fear. (p. 28)
Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be. (p. 29)
Many people are driven by materialism. (p. 29)
Self-worth and net worth are not the same. (p. 29)
Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you - your relationship with God. (p. 29)
Many people are driven by the need for approval. (p. 29)
...those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. (p. 29)
Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless. (p. 30)
Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life. (p. 30)
Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope. (p. 30)
Knowing your purpose simplifies your life. (p. 31)
Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. (p. 31)
It is impossible to do everything people want you to do. (p. 31)
Knowing your purpose focuses your life. (p. 32)
Never confuse activity with productivity. (p. 33)
Knowing your purpose motivates your life. (p. 33)
...passion dissipates when you lack a purpose. (p. 33)
Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity. (p. 33)
"What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?" (p. 34)
"What did you do with what I gave you?" (p. 34)

There are a few things about this, most of them good.

I actually agree with pretty much everything Mr Warren wrote here, except for this: "Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope." (p. 30)

I know a number of people who are not Christians. Their lives have purpose, meaning, significance, and hope. I am a Christian who is clinically depressed. I have been suicidal. My life at those times had no hope.

One thing I see a lot of Christians missing, in their attempts to share the good news of Christ, is the fact that non-Christians are actually able to live happy, fulfilled lives. Yes, believe it or not, it's true. And in the face of that, we need to have more to share with them than "Make your life better by putting your faith in Christ!" That message is no more important to a person who is happy than an ad for the latest PlayStation. (Actually, it may well be far less important than the PlayStation ad.)

I would rather take the approach that my life has purpose, whether I know Christ or not. There is the possibility of being happy whether I know Christ or not. But I am better able to know and understand (and fulfill) my purpose if I am in relationship with Christ, and that gives me a better chance of having joy in my life. (Noting that joy and happiness are not synonyms.)

What on Earth am I Here For? - Day One.

2006-11-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to quote the parts that I underlined when I was reading this before, and then I'll share my thoughts. It should be interesting, at the very least.

1. It All Starts with God.

You were born by his purpose and for his purpose. (p. 17)
focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose (p. 17)
"It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power." (p. 18)
It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. (p. 18)
life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose. (p. 18)
But being successful and fulfilling your life's purpose are not at all the same issue! (p. 19)
"God's wisdom... goes deep into the interior of his purposes....It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest - what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us." (p. 20)
Without God life makes no sense. (p. 21)

So far, so good. I am a little concerned about the apparent adherence to predestination. Some of what's written in this chapter seems to imply that we don't actually have a choice about our lives.

The basic premise is good, though. It really isn't about us. It's about God, it's about other people. The two greatest commandments make that clear (love God with all you are, and love others as you love yourself - I've written on this topic in the past).

There are a few things said in this chapter that I don't like, though. Specifically, the idea that "You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life, but you don't get to choose your purpose." (p. 21)

What's so wrong about that?

Well, I guess it depends on what you end up finding as your purpose. I actually think that we have more than one purpose.

As I said in my previous post, our purpose (humanity's purpose) is to express God. Now, I believe that all of creation has this purpose, and that even those who do not believe in God are often expressing him without realising it.

Then there is the purpose inherent within the two greatest commandments - our purpose is to love. This is specific to humanity.

Finally, there is individual purpose. This is usually called vocation. It has to do with what God has called us to do with our lives.

Here's the thing: I don't believe that our individual purpose is static. Your vocation isn't really just one thing that God wants you to do, and if you don't do it then you're SOL. Now, perhaps this book is meant to look more specifically at the first two types of purpose we have in life. But it markets itself as the third kind, and that is dangerous.

The Purpose-Driven Life? (Introduction.)

2006-11-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

The church I attend is currently in the midst of doing Forty Days of Purpose, a program based on Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life. I am only participating insofar as I am attending service on Sunday mornings - I didn't join any of the special small groups, and I have been refusing to re-read my copy of the book.

But today, I have taken up the book for another look. I don't see much point in reading it, for I don't think it will shed any new light on my own purpose in life. But I thought I would push through it just a little bit, because there are things in this book that need to be examined more closely.

The book was intended to be read one chapter per day. It takes you through forty days' worth of reading, with six main topics: What on earth am I here for?, followed by the five overarching purposes of life: You were planned for God's pleasure; You were formed for God's family; You were created to become like Christ; You were shaped for serving God; and You were made for a mission.

I don't think I'll be taking a full forty days to go through this book. One chapter a day has never been my style, and I think forty days is a bit much, anyway. Sure, it's a good Biblical number, but oy. It really is a long time.

While I don't disagree with any of these main purposes as stated above, I have to say that I very much disagree with the implicit assumption that someone else might know the questions I need to ask in order to learn who I am and what my purpose is. I don't think it's as simple as this, either.

Yes, I should strive to become like Christ, to bring God pleasure, to be a part of God's family, to serve God. I have a mission, and I am still working it out (and getting a little closer every day). But do I have to have it fed to me in such small pieces? My initial reaction to this undertaking was, basically, "I'm a lot more intellectual than this book." I don't mean to insult anyone who found the book challenging. For some people, I'm sure, this book was the first time they'd thought about these topics. When I read it for the first time, I'd been thinking about this stuff for an incredibly long time.

See, I don't believe that God created us so he could have company. I don't think he created us so he'd have more beings around to worship him and love him and stuff. God has angels for worship and love. He has the eternal company of himself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). He's not lonely, and he's not lacking in praise.

I think God created us in a burst of creative joy. He looked around and said, "Hey, you know what? I feel like making something today." And the Spirit breathed on the waters, and life was born.

Ruach.

Created in the image of God? Of course we are! We are created to be creators, to be in relationship with others. This is our purpose. The rest, all that stuff about loving God and having a mission and all the rest, that's extra. The primary purpose of life is to live.

The primary purpose of creation is that of expression. When an artist creates something new, it is in order to express something. When I paint or draw, it is to express whatever picture God has placed in my mind. Sometimes that picture is a message for someone. When I write, it is to express the thoughts in my mind and/or the emotions in my soul. And when I sing, it is to express that which cannot be explained in any other way.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, that's what our purpose is? We exist in order to express God.

Our actions, words, thoughts - they are all a part of the expression of God. We express him in our everyday lives, with every breath we take.

Ruach.

Express yourself. Express God.

It is your purpose.

Liturgy

2006-11-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

I belong to a liturgical church. Like the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, Anglicans get their services out of a book. Non-liturgical denominations don't seem to undersand how using a book to guide one's worship could possibly result in authenticity. Having experienced both forms of worship, I have to say that I do not think that either form of worhsip is more, or less, valid than the other.

But I am not writing a comparison of the two today. Instead, I am here to write about the beuaty & mystery that is wrapped up within the pages of liturgical works.

In the Introduction to McCausland's Order of Divine Service - The Christian Year 2006: Liturgical Year B, the Reverend Dr Richard G. Leggett (of the Vancouver School of Theology) likens the liturgy to a symphony. He divides the Eucharistic liturgy into five sections, and defines each as a movement of the symphony.

Quotes from the essay, The Eucharistic Symphony: Leitourgia in Five Movements:

Leitourgia and Christian Worship
I have come to believe that worship is more like calculus than algebra, especially if we understand that the meaning of leitourgia, the root word for our English term "liturgy," is more complex than we can imagine. Too often contemporary Christians have been satisfied with the frequently used, but inadequate, translation of leitourgia the work of the people." A far better translation of what was originally a secular Greek term is "a public work for the common good." When understood in a Christian context, leitourgia is "God's public work for our common good."
...
Leitourgia is not limited to acts of worship. Worship is an act of historical, theological, and pastoral calculus, our effort to express in word and silence, in action and rest, the mystery of God's saving work in the world. When worship is understood as calculus rather than algebra, then we may find ourselves more open to consider what insights differing forms and approaches to worship gives us about leitourgia. When we gather to celebrate the eucharist, for example, we perform a symphony that attempts to express in five movements God's public work for our common good.

The First Movement: Gathering
We can lose sight of the power of gathering together in one assembly. ... Yet, the most important thing we may do as Christians is to continue to gather together for worship throughout the world, to hear the Word proclaimed, to offer prayer for all of creation, to share in the bread and the wine, and to be sent forth strengthened and renewed.
To be the ekklçsia means to be the assembly of those who are called out for a special purpose. Originally used to describe the assembly of free men gathered to make decisions for the common good of the polis, ekklçsia now describes the Christian assembly, summoned by God to serve the common good of all creation. When we come together for worship, the dispersed people of God are given an opportunity to 'collect their wits' and to remember who we are and what we are to do.
When the presider greets us, it is not the friendly greeting of a server at a restaurant or a passer-by on the street. The greeting itself sets the context for the action into which we are about to enter. In the liturgical assembly we are encountering a mystçrion, not a mystery to be fathomed out, but a truth that becons us ever deeper into its truth. ... This is the God who wills that we enter into communion and learn what it means to be truly alive.
The importance of this fact is made evident by the opening prayer or "collect." ... The classic shape of a collect reveals this: (a) we address God, often using an attribute of God's character; (b) we remember what God has done or is doing; (c) we ask God to continue to do that which we have described; and (d) we give praise and thanks to the Three-Person God, the holy and life-giving Trinity. This prayer complete, we get on with the task before us, our participation in leitourgia.
...

The Second Movement: The Proclamation of the Word of God
...
When the reader proclaims the texts appointed for the day, it is tempting to forget that he or she is speaking God's Word to us. ...
To read the words of the scriptures is to release the power of the Word of God into our midst. The preacher stands before us, small in stature, a known quantity, a familiar figure. Within her or his grasp lies the power to free the Word from the texts that sometimes imprison it, so that the heart of someone sitting near to us may be "strangely warmed" and God's new creation may begin again to work its transormation of our loneliness, our despair, our fear.
... In choosing a lectionary approach, Anglicans make clear that the reading of the scriptures is too important to be left in the hands of an individual. The scriptures belong to the community, and it is the community's responsibility, using various agents and agencies, to determine the texts to be laid before us and broken open for our nurture and formation.
...

The Third Movement: The Prayers of the Faithful
...
I confess that I do not know if prayer changes the eternal purposes of God. I do know that prayer changes the one who prays. Prayer orients us to God's purposes and opens us to God's grace working through us. God responds to our new-found awareness of the needs and concerns of the world by offering us the means to use the gifts we have. We discover that new avenues and ways, which seemed obstructed, are re-opened. This is God's work, not ours, but we are the agents of God's purposes.
In other words, liturgy is for the people more than it is of the people. ... All Christians are called to be liturgists rather than lobbyists for personal projects.
Our confession of sin is a prayer that all that prevents this grace from working in us may be lifted from us, a prayer thar our spiritual arteries may be cleared of the clots, which prevent the blood of the Spirit from reaching our muscles. ...
We are lifted from our prayers into an embodied espression of those intercessions, petitions, and thanksgivings. We are bidden to exchange the peace with one another. From the earliest generations of the Christian people, it has been understood that Christian faith requires concrete expressions. To exchange the peace is (a) to acknowledge our fellowship in Christ, (b) to put our bodies where our mouths (or thoughts) are, and (c) to commit ourselves, one to another. Unless we choose liturgical perjury, then the exchange of the peace requires us to consider how we, in keeping with our stations in life and our personal abilities, will work for Christ's peace in our congregations, our homes, our communities, and our world.

The Fourth Movement: The Holy Communion
...
One of the central passages of the New Testament for the history of the Holy Communion is found in chapters 10 and 11 of 1 Corinthians. In these chapters Paul describes his understanding of the eucharist and gives instructions about how the eucharist is to be celebrated. ...
...
Perhaps the oldest and most constant part of the liturgy is the Lord's Prayer. For two thousand years, whenever and wherever we have gathered, we have joined in this prayer. Perhaps, however, the most difficult petition ever spoken is contained within it: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." We impose a risky condition on God's activity in our lives. For those who cannot forgive, forgiveness is unlikely. What we cannot give, we cannot truly receive.
Then we share a loaf and a cup. ...
The Great Thanksgiving and the Lord's Prayer constantly hold before us that this meal is intended to create and sustain a holy people for God. There can be no true reception of the body of Christ in the bread wine[sic] if we are not prepared to receive it in our children, our parents, our spouses, our neighbours, the stranger in our midst, and those whose views differ from our own. ...

The Fifth Movement: The Commissioning
In the Acts of the Apostles the account of Jesus' ascension is told in some detail. Among my favourite dimensions of the story occurs at the very end. After Jesus has ascended into heaven, the apostles and those with them stand around looking up into the sky. Two angels appear and, in so many words, say, "Why are you standing around gaping? Go home. You have a mission to perform and you will soon receive what you need to perform it."
...
The prayer after communion sets our action into its context. We are reminded that the eucharistic meal is not to be praised but to be used. This meal forms a missionary people and sends them out into a missionary field.
... As William Temple, sometime archbishop of Canterbury during World War II, said, "The church is the one human institution which exists primarily for its non-members."
Go home. Go to school. Go to work. Go on vacation. We have a mission to perform and we have received the gifts wee need to perform it. And should we find that mission difficult, and should we find our strength flagging, there is always another Sunday, either next week or the great Sunday of the promised reign of God. Go home. The assembly is over. Our mission continues. Thanks be to God!
pp. 7-14
McCausland's Order of Divine Service
The Christian Year 2006
David Brinton, editor; Richard Leggett, introduction; Mary Reynolds, hymn selection
© Copyright 2006 by Anglican Book Centre

A poetic description of the liturgy, to be sure.

I have not been studying liturgy long - not by any stretch of the imagination. While I am sure one could say that I have, in actual fact, been studying liturgy all my life (as I have been a member of the Anglican church since my baptism when I was an infant), it was not conscious study.

I have been blessed, in my current job, to find myself working under a rector who cares very much about the liturgy. She plans each service carefully, looking at everything from the movement of people through the space to how we introduce each section of the service (both on paper and in action and voice). I've been a part of this process a couple of times now, and I find it incredibly interesting.

I think I'm going to undertake a proper study of liturgy and how it impacts our worship. This post isn't really a part of that, it's just the introduction so that when the posts start coming you don't wonder where this sudden interest in liturgy came from.

The Three 'R's

2006-11-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Connection. I wrote about this once before. It was brought to mind on Friday night, at a concert I attended with my brother.

Steve Bell is a Canadian Christian singer-songwriter. Near the end of his set, he said that he doesn't believe we were created beause God was lonely. "The Father has always had the Son, and the Son has always had the Father. And the Spirit has always been loving everything. It's just one big ooey-gooey mess." He continued by describing how God created everything in the world in relationship to everything else.

This is not a purely Christian concept. Orson Scott Card, one of my favourite SF writers, gets into this concept in his Homecoming series.

To anyone by Hushidh, the scene was simple - Rash and two of his soldiers blocking anyone from interfering, as the other four soldiers were dragging Kokor and Sevet through the wide front door of Rasa's house. Aunt Rasa herself was shouting ineffectually - "It's you who's injuring Sevet! You'll be expelled from the city! Kidnapper!" - and other women and girls of the house were gathering, huddling in the hallway, listening, watching.

To Hushidh the Raveler, however, the scene was very different. For she coud see not only the people, but also the webs that bound them together. To Hushidh, the frightened girls and women were not individuals or even little clumps - all of them were tightly bound to Rasa, so that instead of being helplessly alone as others would see her, Hushidh knew that she spoke from the strength of dozens of women, that their fear fed her fear, their anger her anger, and when she cried out in the majesty of her wrath, she was far larger than one mere woman. Hushidh even saw the powerful webs connecting Rasa to the rest of the city, great ropy threads like arteries and veins, pumping the lifeblood of Rasa's identity. When she cried out Rashgallivak, it was the fury of the whole city of women in her voice.

Yet Hushidh could also see that Rasa, though she was surrounded by this vast web, also felt herself to be quite alone, as if the web came right up to her but didn't quite connect, or touched her only slightly. That was what Rash's exercise of raw power was doing to Rasa - making her feel as if her strength and power in the city amounted to nothing after all, for she could not resist the power of these soldiers.

At the same time, there was another web of influence - Rashgallivak's. And this one Hushidh knew was actually contemptible and weak. Where Rasa's links with her household were strong and real, her power in the city almost tangible to Hushidh, Rashgallivak had very little respect from his soldiers. He was able to command them only because he paid them, and then only because they rather liked what he was commanding them to do. Rashgallivak, compared to Rasa, was almost isolated. As for his men, their connections to each other were much stronger than their connections to him. And even then, they were nothing like the bonds among the women.

pp. 99-100, Homecoming: Volume 2 -
The Call of Earth, Orson Scott Card

It is echoed in the Pagan concept of cords and doing cord-cuttings when relationships end.

I've already written about forming connections - the how and the why. I want to take a moment today to look at those connections we already have.

As is illustrated in Orson Scott Card's books, connections are not always formed intentionally. But they exist. We are connected to people with whom we come into contact just once.

I wonder what would happen if we took the time to recognise our relationships with other people? I'm not talking about intentionally forming connections, like I did in that other set of posts, but more I'm talking about recognising and respecting the connections that already exist.

Relationship. We exist in relationship.

We are relationship-oriented beings. I disagree with those who say that we were created to love God. More, I believe we were created for and in relationship. Relationship with God, relationship with other people, relationship with nature.

Everything in this world is inter-related. We do not (and cannot expect to) live in a vacuum. What we do & say affects other people.
Recognition. We need to recognise the relationships of which we are a part. Until we recognise our connection with God, we cannot exist in true relationship with him. Until we recognise our connections with other people, we cannot have meaningful interactions with them. Until we recognise our connection with nature (the rest of creation), we cannot be good stewards of all we have been given.
Respect. Without respect, connection and relationship cannot be possible.

Respect doesn't mean agreeing with someone about everything, because if you actually disagree, then you are disrespecting yourself - and them, for you are lying to them. Rather, respect flows out of the understanding that other people have different backgrounds and opinions/understanding of certain subjects. With this understanding, we are able to allow for the possibility not only that we could be wrong, but that there may in fact be no such thing as right or wrong in some cases (or, at least, that we won't know the answer until Eternity).

Respect doesn't offer opinion as fact, and it doesn't misrepresent ideas as feelings. Respect doesn't take disagreement as personal attack, and it doesn't make personal attacks.

I'm not sure what to conclude this essay with. Perhaps some simple encouragement to make use of the three 'R's in your daily life will suffice. Actively look for opportunities to use these, and the thoghts presented in my other series on connection.

Then, if you think of it, come and comment this post about your experiences, or just blog about it yourself and post the link in the comments here.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

Wholeness.

2006-11-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

There are people in this world whose outward expression does not fit their soul. It must be incredibly uncomfortable - moreso than simply knowing that who you are inside doesn't match who you are outside - because these people often don't realise that they are not being true to themselves. Only through patient teaching by those who know the truth can they come to wholeness. And I don't mean wholeness the way the world means it, nor even wholeness as spiritual leaders usually mean it... merely the wholeness of knowing one's own self as fully as possible, and the wholeness of learning to be somewhat comfortable with the otherness of that dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual.

I wrote the above in response to a post made by a friend on her blog. And it reminded me of the topic I've been wanting to write about for a few days now: wholeness.

What is wholeness, anyway? We talk about being broken people, about not feeling whole, about how God fills that hole inside of us that needs to be filled with purpose and meaning. But in all of this talk, in all of these metaphysical nothing words that are only symbols anyway... do any of us really know what wholeness actually is?

I would guess that the answer to that question is no. Nobody knows what wholeness is, they just know that they need it, want it, seek it. But what good is it to search for something if you don't know what you're looking for?

This idea really whacked me over the head as I was thinking about my recent diagnosis of clinical depression. I'm taking medication for that now, and the change has been quite amazing. I no longer fly between intense emotion and no emotion. I no longer have high anxiety levels. (Of course, the lack of ADHD medication has begun to take its toll, and my work is definitely beginning to suffer. But I'll deal with that next week; I have a doctor's appointment on Monday.)

As a "broken person" (in a much more concrete way than most who use that phrase in reference to themselves), I've wondered about the concept of wholeness. What is it? Is it the absence of "disorder"? Is it constant joy & happiness? The knowledge that I am loved by God? What?

I have to say, I disagree with those who believe that I am broken because I have ADHD and clinical depression. A person can have ADHD and be whole. A person can be depressed and be whole. Wholeness is more about the state of the soul than it is the state of one's mind or emotions, I think.

I think that broken people are broken because of sin, and whole people are whole because of Christ. That's the only defining factor in this. We cannot suppose that an autistic person cannot be spiritually whole any more than we must suppose that Mother Teresa was broken. All are broken, and all have the capacity to become whole. We must simply accept the healing hand of Christ in our lives.

I may have felt broken many times in my past, but the moment I accepted Christ and invited him to be a part of my life, I was made whole. Sure, there are still a few dents and cracks here and there, but he's working on those, banging the dents out, glueing, replacing, repainting... eventually I'll be lovely and better than new.

I admit, I like having a proper range of emotions now. I love not having overwhelming anxiety attacks over little things. I particularly enjoy when I can control what I'm focusing on. So I'll keep on with the medication and counseling, because those are the tools God has given me to mend those dents and cracks.

A person who is broken becomes whole, partially because the people around her decide that she is. - Joss Whedon

Prayer last night at Tehillah

2006-11-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Finding focus. Again with the focus... always with the focus.

It's so hard to focus, but I know it's possible - it's a think I know I can do!

Feeling scattered. I know it doesn't have to be like this, because I haven't always felt this way.

God, I like having emotions... not being stuck in extremes. I just... any positive feeling is like an automatic opening for the manic-style planning that carries me so far away from reality... and they are not plans I can ever fulfill, and I know it even as I make the plans, but I still make them.

I want to be practical, God. I long for that organized, practical FOCUS that is the most elusive thing in my life.

I know it's possible. I do. Not under my own power, but with the help of the right medication and with your assistance... I know I will achieve the impossible.

A smattering of thoughts. Processing. May not be totally coherent.

2006-10-20T21:57:00.000-06:00

I've written before about depression; the descent into that place of darkness. It resides within every one of us.

Last month, I was diagnosed with moderate clinical depression. Of course, I've suspected that I might have depression, but to have such a thing confirmed by a professional is something of a shock. Well, perhaps shock isn't quite the right word, but it's not pleasant, anyhow.

I wonder what kind of a connection there is between depression and mysticism? I seem to recall that many of the mystics of the past were depressed. Perhaps depression creates a stronger need for that oneness with God, that desperate desire to be connected with someone.

Christian mysticism, according to Wikipedia, has four aspects to it:

The way of purification
The path of illumination
Contemplation (the experience of oneself in union with God)
Communion (both community and Eucharist; also having a spiritual director)

Last year, I developed a Rule of Life. I based it on the guidelines I found at one of the web sites I found for a lay order that doesn't require a lot of togetherness.

I've been blogging about my spirituality for over two years now. I want to reach that third stage, but I don't know that I've achieved the second yet.

The focus of the first is discipline. I definitely have not achieved that yet. I know that I have ADHD, but that really doesn't excuse my lack of prayer and devotion. I should return to writing daily devotions. It is a creative way for me to spend time with God and work out my faith. I must also begin to fast, as a discipline, praying instead of eating, one day a week. And I must also give - of my time and my finances - to help others, again as a discipline, a certain amount each week or month.

The focus of the second is enlightenment. I think I have brief moments of clarity, where spiritual wisdom comes shining through, but these moments seem to be few and far between. I strive to be open to God, to the leading of his Spirit... hence the tagline for this blog: Christ beside me, Father guide me, Spirit hide me. It is difficult to focus at times, but I am capable of focusing on something for hours when it captures me strongly enough.

The focus of the third is union. I do long for this, for union with God. The experience of God is to be both emotional (of the heart) and intellectual (of the mind). I believe that depression comes in between me and my ability to truly feel his love for me; it is difficult for me to feel loved by anyone, really. (The poem at the top of the sidebar notwithstanding.)

The focus of the fourth is community. This is the hardest part for me, because of how difficult it is for me to feel connected to other people. I partake of the Eucharist on a weekly basis. I haven't yet located someone to be my spiritual director, but I have someone in mind to ask - a female priest who was on the ministry team for the Cursillo weekend I attended, and with whom I had a good relationship prior to that weekend.

I think, once I have completed the novels that are currently telling me to write them, that I will begin to collect my blog posts - the ones here - into a book. Maybe a bit of a devotional book, or a bit of an autobiography. I'll have to rewrite a number of posts, turn them into coherent essays that follow logically one from the other. I repeat themes often enough that the task shouldn't be too difficut. I worry only that my random brain may sabotage my attempts to maintain coherence.

I am not an evangelical, nor am I a post-evangelical. That much is certain. I am more philosophical than most evangelicals, and I am too liberal to be a post-evangelical. And so, I think I will claim the title of mystic for myself. I do not think that this is really a departure for me. It is merely the fulfillment of the searching and struggles I have been working through over the last two years. I have been moving towards this identification all my life.

And the Father says, “I am walking and waiting and nurturing you to come into a place when there’s a greater processing, a greater receiving, a greater ability for you to understand and to come into that which is yours in God.”
Prophecy, September 2003

**Chris was talking about people leaping onto altars that were burning, so that they could be melted down and turned into the new moulds for God’s new anointing for this generation. He said the words “life from death” and this image burst into being for me.**
As the flames die down, the altar is revealed to be a pile of ashes. But from the ashes comes new life - a tall tree grows up to maturity in an instant.
The tree is strong, and its trunk is solid & thick. Its leaves are green & full; no branch is bare!
And the ashes beneath it give it life.
The room is filled with a soft green light, as the light is filtered through the leaves of the tree.
Rooted in tradition, of which the foundation is Scripture - the Word of God. But something new… something new! And the tree is reaching to the heavens, praise be to God!
Anointing, August 2006

Here we go. I suppose it's not "proper" proof. But it's proof, all the same, that mysticism is my path. I may have to walk this path without companions, but I will have Christ beside me, the Father to guide me, and the Spirit to keep me safe from harm.

Who could ask for anything more?

Mystical Flux

2006-10-14T20:16:00.000-06:00

My faith seems to be in flux.

When I say this, I do not mean that my faith is no longer Christian.

I mean that I am inherently dissatisfied with Christianity as it is typically practiced in the Anglican Church. I mean that I am unimpressed by the posturing of the evangelical movement (and, too, the post-evangelical movement).

I think (and I am sure nobody will be too surprised by this) that I am a mystic at heart. So this post will be mainly about mysticism and how it seems to be a part of my theology at this point in time.

Mysticism from the Greek μυστικός (mystikos) "an initiate" (of the Eleusinian Mysteries, μυστήρια (mysteria) meaning "initiation"^[1]) is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is an important source of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Traditions may include a belief in the literal existence of realities beyond empirical perception, or a belief that a true human perception of the world trancends logical reasoning or intellectual comprehension. A person delving in these areas may be called a Mystic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism

I don't think that mystics are any more "mature in their faith" than non-mystics. It's just one of those things where eventually you feel that your path is elsewhere. I haven't grown past the faith I grew up with... it's more like I'm growing into the faith & relationship God has planned for me.

The term mysticism connotes stepping beyond traditional interpretation and mystical traditions are often considered to be more inclusive and universalist, rejecting of particular doctrines associated with traditionalist, exclusivist, fundamentalist, or extremist beliefs. As such, mystical traditions have historically provided a platform by which cultural interchange of religious belief and concepts can occur, as well as to present for non-natives an otherwise culturally exclusive system in an explanatory manner.
(Same Source)

I do think that this is who and what I am.

More than hermiting, more than spiritual direction, I believe I am a mystic.

Christian mysticism is traditionally pursued through the practice of the disciplines of prayer (including meditation and contemplation), fasting (including other forms of abstinence and self-denial), and alms-giving, service to others, as discussed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Other forms of mysticism in general include participation in ecstatic worship and the use of entheogens, the latter not being associated with the mainstream of Christian spirituality. Christians believe that God dwells in Christians through the Holy Spirit, and therefore all Christians can experience God directly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mysticism

Mystics are not far removed from hermits, which is the concept I was pursuing last year at this time. Of these, I know I need to develop a discipline of regular prayer, and I ought to fast more often.

Vocation. It is a concept I have been pursuing for over a year now. I do not think I am any closer to discovering my true vocation now than I was last year. But it is an organic process, an organic thing, this faith and belief and relationship with God.

And so I am in flux, learning more of who I am in Christ, learning more of my self.

If I am truly God's Flourishing Graceful Warrior, then that must surely hold part of the key - as does the crowning name of Praise and Thanks.

It is time to look inward and upward, and meditate on all of these things.

This Morning.

2006-09-14T06:36:00.000-06:00

I get a daily devotional e-mail from Prime Time With God (churchgrowth.org).

This morning, I am preparing to go and have my hair cut to donate for cancer wigs. I've been growing my hair out for two years, for precisely this purpose. I'm turning 30 today, and the Calgary Dream Centre is having their annual radiothon fundraiser. Being the bright girl I am, I thought it would be great to combine the two events (the radiothon and the haircut) to get both more hair (in the future) for wigs and more money (now) for the Dream Centre. So I'm going to be on the radio.

With this excitement in my near future, I woke up before my alarm and knew it would be pointless to attempt to sleep, so I got up and came to the computer to check my e-mail.

If you've been reading this blog for very long, you know that I have a "thing" about names and their meanings. Here is today's Prime Time With God devotional:

Calling by Name
TGIF Today God Is First, by Os Hillman
These were the chiefs among Esau's descendants: The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau: Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz. - Genesis 36:15

God is big on giving meaning to names. Names often are specific indicators of God's plans and purposes for that individual. A young boy grew up as Moses' servant. His Hebrew name, Hoshea, means "salvation." As the lad grew, Moses could see that he had a "different spirit" from the rest of the Hebrew men. He was selected to be one of the 12 men whom Moses chose to spy out the land of Canaan. Before the expedition, Hoshea was given a new name by Moses-Joshua, which means "the Lord saves." Joshua became the new leader of Israel who would lead them into the Promised Land. He would, in fact, save an entire nation.

In my own journey I had learned that God gave me a name that had something to do with my future call from Him. I was 44 years old and had just gone through two of the most difficult years of my life. During that time, God brought a man into my life who discipled me in areas where I had never been trained. I was discovering many new spiritual truths about myself and Christians in the workplace. I came to identify with the struggles of Esau and Joseph in their desire to understand their own birthrights. I began to write about these discoveries to help other workplace believers understand their own callings through business. One morning on a weekend getaway in the mountains, my friend looked at me and said, "Do you know the meaning of 'Omar'?"

Omar is my first name. My real name is Omar Smallwood Hillman III. Dr. Smallwood had delivered my grandfather. No one, not even my mother, knew the origin of "Omar." They put the "O" and the "S" together to call me "Os."

"You need to know the meaning of 'Omar.' It has something to do with your future," said my friend.

Startled by his assertion, that night I looked up the name of "Omar" on a computer program. Here is what I found:

Arabic for "first son" and "disciple," Hebrew for "gifted speaker," and German for "famous." Rooted in the Middle East, this name is rarely used in the West. Omar was the grandson of Esau. [http://www2.parentsoup.com/babynames/baby/o.html]

I was shocked. I had just completed 300 pages of material on the relationship of Christian businessmen to the life of Esau. My friend quickly concluded that God had called me to free Christian businessmen and women from the "Esau life." And He had allowed me to receive a name that related to the person of Esau. It was the closest thing to a burning bush experience I'd ever had. Could the Lord be this personal with us? Yes, Matthew 10.30 tells us He knows the very hairs of our head.

My name means "God's Flourishing Graceful Warrior" (I use all given names when I "do a name"). I find myself growing into that name a little more each day, with advocacy activities and the learning that I am doing about my self and who I am in Christ. (To those who know me in real life: I consider 'graceful' to be talking about the state of my soul, not how clumsy - or not clumsy - I am!)

I know that God knows me, and he knows what I am capable of. I'm beginning to come to terms with the very real possibility that he's led me to my event today, and the absolute certainty that he'll be with me through it. I don't have to be anxious - he's already on top of things.

Cynical Christianity.

2006-09-12T22:21:00.000-06:00

Last night, I went to Tehillah.

This is not exactly an odd event; I attend that service every Monday night. It's a Pentecostal youth service, with contemporary praise & worship music and inspirational talks. There's a post brewing about a couple of the more recent sermons.

Last night was a Starfield concert with a guest speaker. The speaker talked about faith and healing, and how you don't need much faith at all to see healing take place in your life.

And I sat in my seat (in the hall, because I was too internally disorganised and too overloaded sensation-wise to be in the sanctuary) and thought about how many people have had faith - tremendous faith - but have not experienced the kind of miraculous healing this man was talking about.

And I realised something:

I'm too cynical to be an evangelical.

That's why I can't call myself a post-evangelical.

Sure, I'm a bit more liberal than most people would expect, given my parentage and membership in a rather evangelical parish. Yes, I'm definitely postmodern in my approach to life. I'm also very traditional and rather conservative about a lot of things when it comes to my faith and the expression thereof. I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, don't get me wrong: I absolutely believe that God works in the world today, and I absolutely believe that he impacts people's lives for good. But if a tiny bit of faith were all it took to receive healing for our physical ailments, I wouldn't be dealing with a flareup of my tendonitis this week (something I've had prayer for many times in the past, with no results). People wouldn't die of cancer.

See, I don't believe that faith is this magic thing that makes God give us whatever we want. We can't just ask for stuff and if we believe enough we'll get it - it doesn't work that way.

I believe that we need to work for what we want. God gives us what we need, and when there is more that we want, we need to try for it and ask him to help us achieve it. If things don't work out just as we were hoping, that's not due to a lack of faith, and it's not an unanswered prayer. I don't pretend to know just what it is, I just know what it isn't.

Perhaps I'm too cynical to be an evangelical (or a post-evangelical), but I'm not too cynical to be a Christian.

After all, "cynic" is just another word for "realist".

Post-Evangelicalism...? - Part 3 of 3

2006-08-31T17:08:00.000-06:00

The Post-Evangelical
(Dave Tomlinson)

06 - "Let Me Tell You a Story"

There are times when the "evangelical" part of being post-evangelical still lingers. For Dave, this may be one of those places. The word "crumbling" suggests foundationalist imagery (i.e., a house built on the sand). It might be helpful for post-evangelicals to keep in mind that the modern understanding of truth - that it's constructed like ahouse on a rock - is imagery not worth using in a non-foundationalist age. Perhaps we would be more useful if we understood the world as transitioning, growing, becoming - not cracking and crumbling. Not only is it more endearing, it might be more accurate. - Doug Pagitt

It's where books are giving way to screens. People are hungry for spirituality, but dismissive of systematized religion. In the postmodern world image and reality are so deeply intertwined that drawing a line between the two is difficult.

What an incredibly exciting time to be alive as a disciple of Christ. The church has been pushed to the fringes of our culture and stripped of many of the props it has depended on for viability. Some view the move to the fringes as the end of the Constantinian worldview, where the church props up the culture to legitimize itself. Not being at the center of things has been cause for great consternation and upheaval within American evangelicalism. But while life on the fringes is scary, it's part of the church's heritage. Consider Israel's exile in Babylon, or the church before Constantine, during its first three centuries. - Timothy Keel

Few metaphors, in fact, sum up the postmodern situation better than virtual reality, for it is a world in which the old certainties are dissolving.

My thesis is quite simple. Culturally, post-evangelicals identify more closely with postmodernity than modernity and this has a significant bearing on the way they approach and understand the Christian faith. One of the greatest challenges facing post-evangelicals is critiquing, and making a unique Christian contribution, to the new world they inhabit.

In their book Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson identify three demographic groups in America: the Modern, Traditional, and Cultural Creatives. Cultural Creatives, largely resistant to middle-class values, nevertheless define themselves by virtue of their own unique values. On their Web site, Ray and Anderson ask, "Does the religious right have a hammerlock on values in America?" They think not and go on to enumerate values that resonate with postmoderns and post-evangelicals. When evangelicals write off such people as New Agers, they're making a significant mistake. - Timothy Keel

The issue isn't simply who we're trying to reach but who are we. - Doug Pagitt

A World of Different Stories
Modernity not only tells us how things are, but how they were and how they should be.

Post-evangelicals seem to believe their claims are modest, but they really are sweeping. ... They say, "There is no universal, objective truth," but they have their own version of universal truth - one that posits there is no objective, universal truth. - Mark Galli

Actually I think most people would settle for a good story. Part of the rub with post-evangelicals is that most evangelicals rely on apologetics to explain their faith. But apologetics can't satisfy the postmodern appetite for mystery, paradox, and imagination. People are desperate for myth, art, and story. - Timothy Keel

...in the postmodernist world:

people turn away from big stories to more modest "episodes." In other words, they are suspicious of large-scale explanations and universal moralities. Truth is whatever you find out for yourself, not a metanarrative someone else imposes on you.
people distrust claims of certainty and objectivity; the world is a much more blatantly subjective place.
we enter an age of pluralism and relativism. The unforgivable sin is to behave as though you have cornered the market on truth. The tendency is to "mix and match" stories from different sources and versions of truth, drawing on things new and old.
the search for spirituality doesn't lead to conventional religion because religious metanarratives are no more appealing to them than modernist metanarratives.

Zygmunt Bauman describes this postmodern world as "modernity without illusions." In other words, its claims are much more modest than modernity's; it no longer says, "Here is the truth - believe it!" It says, "Try this on for size."

The beauty of what Dave is expressing plays its way out in many wonderful Christian communities. What he's suggesting is not a "take it only if you like it" attitude, but rather a "come and experience the story of God in the life of this community" invitation. IT has been my experience in our community that the reality of God becomes something more than affirming mental assent to belief and is instead something to be lived. But lived modestly. The hope of the post-evangelical position is that it allows communities to be honest and accessible. Many of us from evangelical backgrounds know the sickening feeling of over-promised Christianity. The hope in the PE posture is that it promises what can be experienced, and for many postmoderns that is plenty. The call to live rightly in the world is much more attractive for postmoderns than the call to simply "believe right." - Doug Pagitt

...evangelicals are lodged in a cultural time-warp, still interpreting their faith using the language of, and in the shadow of, the modernist "big story."

There are no culturally free people, and there is no culturally free Christianity. ... We need to be ever vigilant to not carry the seedlings of the "we will be able to get it right" attitude that seems to be planted in this comment. - Doug Pagitt

...all claims to reality are under negotiation, and theology can no longer make absolute claims in a vacuum and expect a ready acceptance.

The Dawning of the New Age
The dark side of postmodernism is very dark. Bauman says it's marked by an "all-deriding, all-eroding, all-dissolving destructiveness." Its ability to deconstruct all the old certainties plunges us into a sea of confusion in which nothing is quite clear anymore.

For many post-evangelical communities, mystery is not the enemy to be concurred nor a problem to be solved, but rather, the partner with whom we dance - and dance we must. The call for the post-evangelical community is to dance and play the music. But we are also called to show each other the way into mystery. We would certainly be under providing if we didn't offer new ways to enter and live in mystery. - Doug Pagitt

Modernity exalted the cognitive faculties and worshiped whatever could be mechanized. The sciences flourished in modernity. Perhaps post-modernity will reqcquaint us with the "humanities" - the celebration of the organic, poetic, imaginative, and tragic. There is no limiting the power of the gospel, but I do believe it's better suited to dancing with the humanities than being dissected by the sciences. - Timothy Keel

[I like the repetition of the word "dance" - I have seen so much of dancing!]

Soon the post-evangelical pastor will become poet (one who can put people's experiences into words), interpreter (one who can put people's lives into a greater context), and guide (one who can invite people into a communal journey). - Doug Pagitt

...postmoderns are actually more open to the spiritual realities and possibilities Christians profess. But Christians shouldn't pormote their spiritual reality in absolutist terms. If we wish to take part in negotiating the future of our culture, we shouldn't act like privileged insiders who know the truth with certainty or allow ourselves to become "trivialized outsiders."

[I may use language gleaned from the New Age movement, but that doesn't mean I want my faith, my Christianity, to be too much like it.]

There are many of us in the post-evangelical camp who are quite concerned thatour communities don't simply become the hyper-individualized expressions of faith that marked much of the modern New Age movement. Post-evangelical Christianity might have much to learn from th eNew Age effort, but it should not be seen as the model. - Doug Pagitt

Postmodernity requires of us nothing less than "the deep interrogation of every breathing aspect of lived experience."

The issue need not be framed in one thing leaving and another coming. This issue is better understood as multiple worldviews existing simultaneously. We need not return to the attitude that in order for one way of thinking to be valuable, the previous one needs to fail or end. - Doug Pagitt
[DUALITY]

Pieces of the Truth
[Post-evangelicalism as Tinker Toys? Christianity as LEGO.]
"Our responsibility," says Brueggeman, "is not a grand scheme or a coherent system, but the voicing of a lot of little pieces out of which people can put life together in fresh configurations."

If Dave is correct, and I suspect he is, this will mean the end of the "mission statement, purpose driven" approach to community leadership. There won't be the acceptance of a single focus of a community of faith, no matter how snappy and easy it is to remember. - Doug Pagitt

We must make available "lots of disordered pieces that admit more than one large ordering." This mirrors something Paul wrote the Galatians. Paul exhorted the Galatians not to fall for rigid legalism, but to stick with freedom in Christ, instead. The essential "pieces" the Galatians had to work with included the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22-23). They were to avoid mixing in "works of the flesh" (5.19-21). But otherwise their lives in Christ could be formed in a million configurations informed not only by their freedom in Christ, but also their God-given human potential and imagination.

As the German ecologist Rudolph Bahro says, "When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure."

For those of us who chose the moniker of post-evangelical must be reminded that our way is not any more like Jesus than those who went before us. We are simply making an effort to be like Jesus in our setting. May God grant us the blessing of our forefathers. - Doug Pagitt

07 - The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Something Quite Like the Truth
...research of any sort takes place within a paradigm, a whole cluster of beliefs and values that are taken for granted within a given community...

It is this understanding that has reassured many post-evangelicals that the creation of transformative communities - not churches that focus on education and indoctrination - is where we ought to place our emphasis. Now we must struggle with "How do we then live?" The kind of conversation Dave is suggesting here requires a changing of the very approaches we are using. So, how do we do it? - Doug Pagitt

Because paradigms are imperfect human constructions, and because no paradigm allows humans to see everything as it really is, paradigms are ill equipped to handle every anomaly or inconsistency. When too many anomalies rise, the community using the paradigm begins questioning its value, and the paradigm goes into crisis - with three possible outcomes. First, once tackled, the anomalies may be resolved satisfactorily from within the paradigm. Second, the anomalies may not be solved, but since no alternative paradigm emerges that can do any better, the problems are simply put on the back burner; or third, the adoption of a new paradigm either resolves the anomalies or makes them irrelevant. Often, the pressure of having too many issues on the back burner speeds the search for, and adoption of, a new paradigm.

...shifts to a new paradigm don't take place through straightforward logical development, but rather through inspired and imaginative leaps.

It's important to note that the answer to this condition is not simply to change the "card" (the music or preaching style), but the change must come from the understanding of reality. For post-evangelicals it's not simply an issue of changing the packaging or method but the very understanding of the reality of God. This is why the creation of Christian communities is so important in the post-evanelical world. - Doug Pagitt

"It's Not What You Know - It's the Way You Know It"
Post-evangelicals have moved away from the certainty that characterizes evangelicalism to a more provisional and symbolic understanding of truth.

I wonder if post-evangelicals are willing to concede that not everyone is called to wallow in the ambiguities of provisional truth. Evangelicals hold some truths with deep certainty and believe this certainty - faith - may even be a gift of God. Post-evangelicals may lack certainty as a divine reminder that the kingdom of heaven has not yet arrived and that our lives and theology are provisional until Christ comes again. But we need evangelicals to speak God's truth confidently in order to buoy up many people who would otherwise lead listless lives. - Mark Galli

Humans have a number of ways of knowing, and often these intuitive, relational paths inform how we exercise our will.
Must postmoderns be converted to modern notions of truth in order to become disciples of Jesus Christ? Hopefully not. - Timothy Keel

The difference between the two paradigms isn't their opinions about what's true as much as a difference in the way opinions about truth are reached. Another difference between the two paradigms is their different language preferences: scientific or poetic.
[process]

These issues have more to do with the posture of the belief holder than they do with the belief itself. The belief holder needs to be provisional, imprecise, and symbolic as in, "it seems to me" and "from my vantage point..." Much post-evangelical critique deals not only with content, but also with the attitude of the person using the content. The place of greatest distinctive in evangelicals and post-evangelicals may not be in what they believe (even as significant as that can be at times), but in how they believe it and how they organize themselves to get others to believe it. - Doug Pagitt

Scientific language aims to eliminate ambiguities by using precise and absolute statements. Poetic language delights in ambiguity and even plays with it, deliberately.

Post-evangelicals will admit to using propositional statements, but they seem to have a hard time admitting how utterly dependent they are on such reasoning. - Mark Galli

[It's the problem with post modern/relativistic thinking: "Be open to everything, except people who are closed-minded."]

The call of the post-evangelical is to do the work of the reformers and not to simply think like the reformers and recite them. Perhaps our need to study the past isn't for content but for clues on how to proceed and inspiration to continue on the journey. - Doug Pagitt

Rather than take their faith for granted, questioners are honestly struggling for a faith they can believe in.

"Anybody There?"

Speech events are constitutive acts performed within the context of plausibility structures. Everything we say and hear shapes our perceptions of reality, a reality that exists within the framework of a community of people who share our outlook. Just as the university community, for example, has a plausibility structure that promotes a certain way of knowing and talking, so should the church. Unfortunately the church has struggled to find an equally compelling way to pass on faith. - Timothy Keel

How do we gain access to the truth? By God's revelation of himself, which comes to us via the words of Scripture. These words do not reveal the complete, exhaustive truth about God, but they do reveal sufficient truth for us to know God truly and do his will faithfully. These words reveal enough for us to live lives of certainty, joy, and fruitfulness for God. To desire more than this is to transgress the limits of our humanity. - Mark Galli
[Is there more? Is it even possible to want/have more?]

The God Who Is There

What lost or neglected metaphors can churches rediscover or reimagine that will help it reach out to postmoderns? Church as monastic community? Mission outpost? Artistic haven? Our metaphors will either free up or constrict how we conceive of ourselves; they will determine what we measure and value. - Timothy Keel

Karl Barth actually insisted that the only way we can speak of God is in a via dialectica or through an opposition of statement and counter-statement, of "yes" and "no," of paradox, in which the extremes of the negative and positive ways are held together in the response of faith.
[duality]

...God is beyond rational comprehension and, ultimately, dogmatic formulation.

...poetic language is "more true" and more meaningful than "precise" or unambiguous scientific language that doesn't allow for metaphoric tension.

It's impossible to escape the constraints of language and objectively to say whether our beliefs are true or not. Whatever your choice, faith is required.
Human language is unable to describe the external realities of God with any precision. As we have seen, this does not make language useless; it simply means that we have to accept its limitations.
Religious language, or talk about God and the spiritual realm, is therefore inherently provisional and approximate.

Critical Realism Trumps the Naive
Since Christians assume God is a real external being there are two roads they can travel down: that of naive realism or that of critical realism. Naive realism assumes that talking about God or the spiritual dimension in a literal or near-literal way is as unproblematic as our talk about everyday objects and experiences.

Naive realism assumes that all expressions of truth must be precise, absolute, literal, and propositional.

...rejecting naive realism doesn't mean one believes the Bible is devoid of historical content.

...critical realism affirms that many entities, though unobservable, are nevertheless real...

The Symbolism of the Cross

"Generation X" is the first generation to grow up in a post-Christian, postmodern America. Some sociologists also believe that Generation X is the most poorly parented generation of this century. Generation X knows upheaval and feels afloat. Generatio X wants to reconnect to what has been lost or sacrificed in their lives. The relational (versus legal) conception of the atonement speaks to Generation X with warm, life-giving, fopeful language. - Timothy Keel

But we simply can't dodge biblical language that says something objective changed in the universe when Christ died, that sins formerly unforgiven can now be forgiven, that the chains of sin and death have been broken. These biblical metaphors consistently point to something that took place outside the human heart, even though it ends up transforming the human heart. - Mark Galli

"So, It's Just a Matter of Anything Goes?"

Many in our community hold to the notion that the word truth needs very little help - and certainly doesn't need qualifiers like objective or absolute. How can truth be more than true? - Doug Pagitt

At this point we only have perspectives on ultimate truth and not ultimate truth itself.

Those unfamiliar with post-evangelical communities of faith shouldn't conclude that these are people of little passion or belief. They may be better described as a people who are captured by the story of God, not a people who have captured the truth of God. - Doug Pagitt

When people assume you're floating free if you don't have absolute truth, they are making one very serious value judgment: that you are not seeking absolute truth.

A combination of faith and doubt.
[duality]

Doubt challenges dogmatism and questions the neat schemes in which we think we have truth wrapped up.

..."holy insecurity."

...faith is always a trust and commitment despite the lack of infalilble dogmas. Faith takes us beyond a detached scientific outlook to the sphere of personal involvement.

A combination of commitment and enquiry.
[duality]

Commitment does not rule out critical reflection, continued enquiry, or dedication to the search for truth beyond personal preference.

A combination of confession and self-criticism.
[duality]

...conceptual categories and human subjectivity limit our ability to formulate truth.

It's disheartening to share with someone how much we love the Bible, how excited we are to read it, to savor the words, to let them soak into our skin... only to have our reverie interrupted by, "You believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, don't you?" It's very discouraging to worship with brothers and sisters, glorifying God together, only to have one of those brothers notice your tattoo/earring/cigarettes/weird hair/environmental T-shirt, and say, "Are you a liberal?" The reality is, as Dave points out, post-evagelicals are evangelicals, and post-moderns aren't liberal or conservative - they are post-labels, post-categorization. They are simply followers of Jesus who see life differently than other followers of Jesus. (Note: They are following, and they are following Jesus.) - Mike Yaconelli

08 - Is the Bible the Word of God?
...immense respect for the Bible... keen to rediscover its relevance for their lives and world.

...backlog of negative feelings about the way they have seen the Bible used.

...struggle with the "strangeness" of the biblical world compared to their own day-to-day reality.

Does it occur to anyone else these days that maybe we have things backward? We're so anxious to make the"strange world" of the Bible speak to the "real world" of today. Maybe it's our world today that's strange, and the biblical alternative is real, and it's the church's job to help people see that. In fact, this could be part of what it means to be transformed in mind. - Mark Galli
[This makes WAY MORE SENSE!]

Mr Evans Meets Ms Tomkins

Naturally, these two portraits are caricatures to set up the post-evangelical middle way. But as the quoting of Karl Barth shows, this middle way is neither post-evangelical nor new; his middle way has been around for som 70 years. Mainline evangelicals have been studying the Bible while avoiding literal and liberal pitfalls for decades now. And they haven't all used Barht's neo-orthodox approach, either. - Mark Galli
[And the "middle way" is, itself, an extreme.]

Many people who grew up in churches that took a literalistic approach to Scripture later find themselves unable to sidestep the nasty critical questions. Some are swamped with doubts about biblical credibility when exposed to scholarly studies during college, or when they start reading more serious literature on the Bible or theology. Others struggle with faith when they are engulfed by some personal crisis that confronts them with complex moral and ethical decisions.

The Inerrancy Debate - A Pointless Diversion
"One gets the impression that its [the Bible's] chief task is to point away from itself to something or someone who is far more important."

There are plenty of (propositional!) good arguments here as to why the Bible is not inerrant or propositionally authoritative, as well as good discussions on how it should be understood via symbol and story. But then why should we bother with the Bible at all? This is the question I've not heard answered well in post-evangelical circles. - Mark Galli
[Because it gives us a picture of God that is more nuanced than the one we discover/experience on our own.]

An Honest Dialogue
The Bible as Word of God - In What Sense?
Barth had a sophisticated understanding of the "word of God" as God's revelation. Not much interested in the inerrancy debate, Barth saw revelation as parimarily personal rather than verbal and as the self-disclosure of God rather than as a set of propositions. The word of God, said Barth, has a threefold form: the primary form is the living Word expressed in Jesus Christ; the secondary form is the written word of Scripture, which testifies to the living Word; and the third form is the proclaimed word which is the church's proclamation of Christ the living Word. The three are inextricably linked together, the Word of God in Christ being primary. The Bible, said Barth, is not in itself revelation; instead it testifies to the revelation of God in Christ. "No one who reads the Bible carefully," he says, "whill find in it any claim that its texts are, as such, a revelation of God." On the other hand, he continues, it's equally wrong to say (like the liberals) that the Bible merely includes the revelation of God. The whole Bible, he insists, is "pregnant with revelation."

The idea that we can know the Bible like we can know the instruction book for my television is preposterous. To believe that we can march through all of its pages and capture its meaning and plumb all its depths with scolarly precision is to diminish and demean the Bible. As Parker Palmer so eloquently points out, "We do not know the Truth, it knows us." This way of knowing is at the heart of the postmodern view of truth. Truth is not something we conttal or capture or rame. truth is wild, mysterious, alive, and always on the prowl to capture, confront, and find us! The jbob of the seminary is not to explain the Bible but to strike terror into the heart of anyone who decides to read its pages. True scholars have not declawed the Bible. Quite the contrary. True scholars teach us to approach the Scriptures with deep respect. They usher us into its pages with awe and wonder, fear and excitement. The Bible is truly "pregnant with revelation." - Mike Yaconelli

Still, any search for an absolute and unconditional source of divine revelation in Scripture, Barth believed, inevitably faced the limitations of the biblical authors and the relativity of their time and culture.

...Bible as both God's word and a human word.

The entire Bible is human word, subject to the strains, weaknesses, and errors of any human product, and therefore requires examination and study with all the critical methods available. Yet it is also divine word in that it has something to say which doesn't arise merely out of human thought or culture. Therefore it must also be studied with a listening ear, to hear what God will say through it.

Finally, Barth spoke of the Bible becoming, rather than being, the word of God. Barth thought it possible to read the Bible and even study it in a scholarly manner, and never hear God speak at all - just as one might have encountered Jesus and never seen beyond his humanity. The word of God in this sense is not a static quality of the Bible, but something that comes into being as God speaks through it in a living and dynamic way - why Barth says it is pregnant with revelation.

Barth's threefold understanding of the word of God contains some key insidghts and helps us think more clearly about a very important biblical phrase. But it remains true that Scripture contains words that are, in some sense, to be equated with the word of God. That is, the words of Scripture matter, not just the overall biblical story or the biblical metaphors. If we don't take these words seriously as words, within their grammatical context, we risk reading our own ideas into Scripture and fashioning God after our own image. - Mark Galli

How Does the Bible Speak God's Word?
"WORD OF GOD" - A METAPHOR
To say Scripture is the word of God is to employ a metaphor.

"WORD OF GOD" - A SYMBOLIC REVELATION
Bear in mind that revelation, as we've discussed it, is not primarily about imparting facts, but the disclosure of a person. Revelation is the "divine self-gift which has been taking place from the moment of creation and will continue to the end of time."

Our primary attention, and our faith-response to the Bible, is not merely to words, but to the One who is sacramentally revealed through the words.

How Do We Hear God's Word?

Language is God's gift to us, not exhaustive but sufficient to express the truths that need to be expressed to draw people to God, to prompt goodness, and to thwart destructive teaching (heresy). - Mark Galli
[Yes. We cannot communicate specifically enough without words, though they are insufficient themselves.]

...Scripture does not automatically become the living and dynamic word of God to the reader. Two key words - faith and imagination - explain how the word of God can come alive in spite of our limited human perspective.

"Take it on faith"
...we cannot know things from the outside; in order to know something we must "indwell" it, that is, "cease to handle things and become immersed in them."

...presuppositions are not to be seen as enemies of honest research but as basic essentials. But this faith element is not, in Polanyi's judgment, a matter of cold choice; it arises out of a kind of intuitive compulsion - call it a hunch - which provides the impetus for faith.

...when we adopt one way of looking at things, we automatically exclude other ways of looking at them. Faith has a necessary exclusiveness about it.

...if something is conceivable, it is also conceivably wrong.

...at the very heart of faith there must be a dialectical tension between commitment and doubt.
[duality]

The important issue for post-evangelicals is to not individualize our experiences with the Bible, but instead hear it and seek to live it in community - locally, globally, and historically. The failure of the modern understanding of the Bible is the belief that any one person can extract pure and clean belief from it. - Doug Pagitt

"Use your imagination"

What is it about the imagination that's made it the enemy of some evangelicals? Why are many evangelicals afraid of imagination, afraid of meditation and contemplation? Where were they taught that the mind is a dangerous place, populated with demons and evil spirits ready to barge in on any imaginative thought? For decades this kind of thinking has robbed Christians of experiencing God through lectio dvina, journaling, and meditation. Evangelical obsession with Bible study and theology has kept the majority of the church from interacting with Scripture, personally meeting God in Scripture, and becoming intimate with the words of Scripture. One amazing way to combat the busyniess of our society and the worship of speed is through peace and solitude and quiet in the act of contemplating God's Word. This new generation of postmoderns wants more than words; they want to know what's beyond words. They are ready to accept that the Word of God is more than reading material, it's a way of living - an expression of the difference that knowing God makes. - Mike Yaconelli

...revelation is essentially symbolic. Symbols operate at an intuitive, rather than a purely rational level, and imagination is the medium for intuition.

...faith itself operates on an intuitive and imaginative level.

There may be nothing more important to a post-evangelical understanding of the Bible than the use of imagination. This imaginative process must be done in community and is often heightened by the participation of artists. This sits in contrast to the reductionistic, scientific approach of modern evangelicalism. May we find the success in this effort that those who held a rationalistic understanding of the Bible found in theirs. - Doug Pagitt

Imagination is, after all, a quintessential human act, and can challenge all our settled certitudes.

...imagination is the ability to see the world as it might be rather than as it is.

...seedbed of transformation...

Meditation. This is a form of mental reflection in which the mind moves back and forth through a particular passage, narrative, or character.

Contemplation. Contemplation tries to give expression to deep inner emotions of thankfulness, love, or trust toward God in a kind of mystic communion. ...less reflective and less concerned with fresh mental insights than meditation. ... If it is to remain Christian, contemplation needs to be funded by the great images and symbols of the Christian narrative. It can quite often be used as an extension of meditation.

Recitation and Storytelling. ...when the oral testimonies in Scripture were first written down, they were not intended for silent reading - they were meant to be read aloud. Literacy should not rob us of the enormous benefits of reading Scripture aloud! The skidlls of reading and telling stories have been swallowed up in the more directive and less allusive craft of writing texts.

Art Therapy/Bible Meditation. Imagination is a way of breaking with words while still interacting with them. ...all kinds of good things can begin to happen as we portray the feelings and ideas emerging out of the symbolism of Scripture.

Bible Study. ...communal experience that heightens the imaginative process. ...diverse forms of imaginative sstudy, including everything from drama to storytelling, from clay modeling to role-play, from drawing to memory games.

Theological Study. The word of God can be imaginatvely brought to life in the midst of the academic enterprise. C.S. Lewis spoke scathingly of much devotional study of Scripture, which he saw as frequently awash in sentimentalism. He spoke of loving nothing more than puzzling over a tough theological issue with a pencil in his hand and a pipe between his teeth. ...we can say that the Bible is God's word provided we recognize that the "word" is an event mediated by the Bible and not the book itself. ...we need to approach it both with all available critical skills, and with the imaginative faith through which we will experience God revealing himself.

09 - Positively Worldly

This is a seminal issue in the post-evangelical distinction. Post-evangelical communities like ours define our following of Jesus not simply by right belief, but also in right life. It's our intention to be a blessing of God for the world. Our conviction is that the call of the church is to "download the intentions of God into the operating system of the world." For congregations like ours, there is no intention to be protected from the world, but rather to bring about the dreams and love of God in our world. This is in significant contrast to classic evangelicalism. It was Oswald Chambers, who - like many evangelicals who champion a personal experience with God over usefulness to the world - writes, "The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament, but comes from the systems of the world... The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is personal relationship with him, not public usefulness to others." (My Utmost for His Highest, October 19) Many post-evangelicals simply disagree and seek to live useful lives in the way of Jesus and believe that you shouldn't separate the words you use from the life you live. - Doug Pagitt

The Parallel Universe
Evangelicals have created a cultural parallel universe
[Yes, and I hate it.]

Post-evangelicals want a relationship with the world as participant Christians.

Post-evangelicals also look at secular culture more positively as a place where God is also graciously at work.

...more hopeful view of the human condition...

"A Bundle of Contradictions"
On one hand Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, while on the other he was made alive by the breath of God. Humans were created in the image of God.
[duality]

We can choose to grow spiritually, morally, and intellectually. The imago Dei is not a fixed "nature" but a capacity to "be" God-like.

For many post-evangelicals, a holistic view of humankind is very attractive, as opposed to the dualistic view encouraged here. Many evangelicals hold a Western-Greek view of God - God is "out there" and needs to be pursued - while many post-evangelicals find connection with an Eastern-Hebraic understanding that implies God can be found in people. This distinction influences how PEs experience God, pursue Christian faith, and view each other. - Doug Pagitt

...the image of God has been crippled by sin.

I don't believe we need to clarify the effects of sin; we need to be about articulating a better understanding of sin altogether. Could it be that now is the time not only to look anew at our old categories, but also to develop new understandings of sin and salvation for our world? - Doug Pagitt

...the image of God in humanity, though defaced, is not effaced.

...sin doesn't have the last word.

...while humans cannot redeem themselves, this very helplessness evokes a search for the grace that can solve our predicament.

Modernity has determinde how we viewed sin and the image of God. Might an emerging culture give us new ways of looking at these matters? Most of the people I know will readily admit that something is badly screwed up in their lives. Many even use the term "sin." The abused and the abuser, the dealer and the user, the addicted and the hurting - they all know about the power of sin. But do they know the power of God's goodness? Many who know they're sinners and have experienced evil at the hands of others have difficulty acknowledging that God's image resides in them. - Holly Rankin Zaher

There is surely a significant difference between the knowledge of and the presence of God's grace. Some may have knowledge yet have little existential presence of grace, while others may have little knowledge of it yet a great deal of its existential presence.

Rather than looking at things territorially - the church as God's (therefore safe) territory, and the world as the Devils' (therefore dangerous) territory - or dealing with rigid categories ("church and world," or "Christian and secular," et cetera), we should see God at work in his world, revealing himself in all kinds of ways and responding to the inner yearnings and the faith-commitments of people everywhere. The world then ceases to be clear-cut, and we find ourselves dealing not only with the "bundle of contradictions" in the human situation, but also with the eternal Being who loves the world and is poured out for its sake.

A World of Difference
Culture determines how we think and feel, directs our actions and defines our outlook on life. Cultural identity is an inescapable human reality.

Our entire concept of God is also conditioned by culture - both by other, often ancient, cultures, and our own.

If theology is to make any sense, it must not only use language, but it must use the language of its surrounding culture, which in turn affects what theology is saying and how it is understood. Theology must always be formulated and reformulated as cultural conditions change.

Culture is a paradoxical intermixture of the earthy and the transcendent...
[not paradox - duality]

Non-Christians can be wise, do good, and experience God's grace. No culture is black and white; all culture is paradoxical and contradictory.

The Fingerprints of God
One reason secular culture tends to be more evocative and stimulating is the greater freedom non-Christians have to explore the full gamut of human emotion.

An enormous amount of creativity stems from the darker side of the human experience.
[the descent Parker J. Palmer wrote of.]

...evangelicals treat sexual matters and innuendo and erotic feelings as forbidden territory, too.

Because of the problems Dave cites here, the evangelical church has lost many artists in the modern age. Many were not invited to share their gifts or perhaps not welcomed at all. So now the evangelical church has to recover the arts, much like the church of the Reformation after its iconoclastic excesses. How will the evangelical church do it? - Holly Rankin Zaher

Post-evangelicals must be careful to not assume that it's the quality of art that makes it Christian. "Good" post-evangelical art may not significantly help the world. Post-evangelicals must suggest a new message, not simply a more effectively executed message. The issue Dave may be raising is the need for the church to be led by artists - not simply to benefit from their quality work. - Doug Pagitt
[this makes sense, since it is in art that we are most closely found & through the act of creation that we most emulate God.]

The world, like the individual, is an ambivalent bundle of contradictions.

Engagement requires discernment - not swallowing secularity whole.

...one cannot possibly criticize a culture without understanding it...

We have to find a way of engaging positively - even transform - our culture without giving in to its anti-Christian influences.

...we need more communal relfection on issues raised by contemporary culture. ... Put some structure into the discussion. Don't make up themes on the run; decide on them ahead of time. Appoint an informal chairperson to keep the discussion on track. Finally, avoid the temptation to formulate a Christian "line" on issues; don't be afraid of open-ended conclusions.
[kind of like THING]
...continually use the biblical text as the context for thinking about and discussing the issues raised. Don't try to apply the Bible in a textbook or rulebook style to contemporary issues. ...allow Scripture to fund deliberation, to act as a lens through which we view the contemporary world. ... Groups can help individuals overcome these difficulties. In a group different people think differently. Some people tackle issues pragmatically while others tend to think theologically or biblically. Each approach is a necessary complement to the other.
...maintain uncompromised integrity. The conscience is a flawed and fallible apparatus, inevitably in a state of constant readjustment. ..."whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14.23). ...it's probably more important that we're true to our convictions than whether or not our convictions were correct.

Wherever we turn in God's world we find his fingerprints. Not just in the glories of the countryside, but also in the tangled web of human life and culture.

God has not given up on it, and neither should we.

10 - Christianity For a New Age
...an increasing number of people see themselves as post-evangelical, and many more identify with what post-evangelical means without actually using the term.

...linked to a fundamental cultural shift underway in the Western world: a shift from the modern to the postmodern.

Some evangelicals have responded to the shift by returning (in some cases with a vengeance) to the older certainties.

For many of us, however, this approach just won't do. We identify with those who are willing to engage more positively with the new situation and who also believe it has much to offer Chrstians, just as they have much to offer to it.

To some extent the comfort level one has with one of the other approach depends on the degree to which he or she actually lives in the world of the postmodern (or, as I would put it, the real) world or the degree to which one tries to avoid it.

A church history professor of mine once recalled the seminary environment in the early 1970s. Some students were young conservatives fresh out of Bible college; others were hippies who came to Christ through the "Jesus movement." The professor described the cultural tension back then by saying one group knew all the right answers and none of the questions, while the other knew all the right questions but none of the answers. The people I pastor are similarly divided, althrough, on balance, more have thoughtful questions than easy answers. I want both groups to engage in open dialogue. - Timothy Keel
[that's when Dad went to seminary.]

And how will we know the questions unless we listen? This type of listening does not occur during the typical church program. Post-evangelicals create space in their lives to listen to each other's stories and questions. - Holly Rankin Zaher

...people now reject truth claims that are expressed in the form of dogma or aboslutes.

...dignity is granted to emotions and intuition...

...people are accustomed to communicating through words linked to images and symbols rather than merely through plain words or simple statements.

...people have come to feel a close affinity with the environment, and where there is a strong sense of global unity.

Evangelicals struggle to articulate a compelling theology of creation because most evangelical theology is subsumed into soteriology - the theology of salvation. Evangelicals want to know how to save people. This theological preoccupation, however, is passing away. Jason Clark, a pastor in the United Kingdom, observes that most of the issues to which the world wants answers relate to creation: ecology, gender roles, sexuality, and anthropology (which addresses a host of sub-issues, including "What does it mean to be human?" "When does life begin?" and "How do we deal with the powerless?" to name a few). Evangelicals focused on getting people into the next life don't have answers for such questions - and they should. - Timothy Keel

...people are deeply suspicious of institutions, bureaucracies, and hierarchies.

...the spiritual dimension is once again talked about with eagerness and ease. Post-evangelical people, I think, are people who belong to, or are influenced by, this world and whose Christian faith is increasingly being expressed in and through this frame of reference.

Hunger for spirituality is all around us...

Unfortunately most people are not turning to the church to satisfy this hunger; instead many are turning to some expression of the New Age movement.

...the vast majority of New Agers are engaged in a serious search for God.
[This I agree with, but they have been deceived. To say anything else is to deny the Truth of Christ.]

The evangelical gospel tends to be much too "refined." [True, but the Bible must be taken as a whole!] The prepackaged evangelical gospel is really their own construction out of a lot of little unconnected biblical pieces that - in their original contexts - were usually not part of a larger, evangelical sort of system.
We need to take seriously Brueggemann's idea of "funding the postmodern imagination." Rather than offering truth in the form of a dogmatic grand scheme, we must invite people to dream up their own blibically informed "fresh configurations."
In a similar vein, the usual approach to presenting the gospel assumes that "we've got it - you need it!" ...the language of journey is more helpful. ... Evangelism should be seen as opportunity to "fund" people's spiritual journeys, drawing on the highly relevant resources of "little pieces" of truth contained in the Christian narrative. ...those who evangelize often look for quick results... "The gradual process is the way in which the majority of people discover God," he [John Finney] says, "and the average time is about four years: models of evangelism which can help people along the pathway are needed." The journey concept is apparently borne out by the facts. ...willingness to admit to the ups and downs of our own journey. ... We all know only in part, we experience only in part, and in a postmodern world, it's crucial that we're honest about this limitation. Sadly, the organized church is the biggest stumbling block of all to the postmodern. ...people see in the church a remnant of what they see and reject in the outside world: hierarchies, bureaucracies, and power struggles. ... This is not a time for churches to be working toward "bigger," "better," and "more powerful"; it's a time for the church to follow the example of its Lord and divest itself of its power, with all the personality jostling, political maneuverings, and empire-building that goes with it - the postmodern world is not impressed!

And Finally...

How do we encourage each other during this cultural transition? Will post-evangelicals - even with insecurity - create a new culture? - Holly Rankin Zaher

"When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure."

Post-Evangelicalism...? - Part 2 of 3

2006-08-26T15:57:00.000-06:00

The Post-Evangelical
(Dave Tomlinson)

01 - A Symbol of Hope
...the lack of ready alternatives to evangelicalism-as-usual is a major reason why people give up the quest altogether, and consequently become ex-Christians.

Why "Post"-Evangelical?
Most people who contemplate the possibilities of being "post"-evangelical do so because of the difficulty they have reconciling what they see and experience in evangelicalism with their own values, theological reflection, and intuition.

...while evangelicalism is supremely good at introducing people to faith in Christ, it's distinctly unhelpful when it comes to encouraging a more "grown up" experience of faith.

What does grown up mean? Lots of things, so I will just mention the one definition I heard cited most often: the desire to interact on a more positive level with non-evangelical theologies and perspectives.

I would say that a new way of looking at Christianity is needed because of our current culture shift and not because of a change in maturity. - Holly Rankin Zaher

...alternative perspectives are mentioned in evangelical circles only to promptly dismiss them as rubbish or disgraceful compromises.

The culture war is part of our evangelical genetic code. - Timothy Keel

...a more "grown up" environment is one in which there are fewer predigested opinions, fewer categorical conclusions, and a lot more space to explore alternative ideas.

Faith is more than an intellectual buffet where we are given permission to try this or that. Faith is a relationship with Jesus complete with all the twists and turns that relationships bring. It's in the tussle of following this Jesus - during the process of getting to know God - that I am surprised, confronted, exposed, challenged, and pushed beyond my comfort zone. The word for this dynamic interaction with God is growth. Not only does my faith in Christ allow me more space to explore alternative ideas, my faith allows me the space to follow Jesus wherever he goes. I wish Dave would have argues that many of us have no choice about this; if we want to follow Jesus, and we do, then we must go where he goes, ignoring, as we should, those who say we can't go there. - Mike Yaconelli

...room to express doubt without having someone rush around in a mad panic trying to "deliver" them from unbelief.

Narrowmindedness and dogmatism are to be found in churches of all traditions.

All in all, swapping traditions is not necessarily a solution to the questions post-evangelicals are asking.

What Do We Mean by "Evangelical"?
Although one writer has described no fewer than 16 distinct strands of evangelicalism, we can, even from this simple historical outline, identify several major features common to most evangelicals across the denominational spectrum. Evangelicals recognize faith in Christ's atoning work as absolutely central. They assert that this faith must be personal, leading to an experience of conversion. They stress the importance of declaring the gospel to non-believers. They hold to the supremacy of Scripture over all other sources of authority. Some, like the fundamentalists, claim that the Bible is inerrant, (the belief that in its original form it contained no errors or mistakes), and most hold a position very close to inerrancy even though they do not like the word. Evangelicals also universally believe in the actual, historical nature of events like the virgin birth, the miracles, and the death and bodily resurrection of Christ.

...it's no longer possible to generalize about the movement. These criticisms are more representative of the fundamentalist wing than evangelicalism as a whole. The "post-evangelicalism" championed in these pages could more accurately be described as "post-fundamentalism" or"post-legalism". - Mark Galli

Evangelicalism must also be understood as a "culture" with a particular social ambience.

...distinctive social attitudes and behavioural expections, which at best might be interpreted as the right way for Christians to live, and at worst are criticized as being chritianized, middle-class conservativism. To be fair, evangelicalism is probably a mixture of both.

...individuals are expected to change, and generally do.

Evangelical culture is a ghetto inaccessible to all but evangelicals. While at first glance the ghetto suggests evangelicals are "in the world, but not of it," they have merely co-opted secular-speak into God-talk: "God's Gym" for "Gold's Gym," "This Blood's for You" for "This Bud's for You" on T-shirts, and "Testamint" breath mints (always an opportunity to witness). Tragically, life in this ghetto fails to address the larger issues of Western, consumptive materialism; worse, it thrives on the "trinket-ization" and trivialization of Christianity. - Timothy Keel [Yes yes yes!]

Dave has named what the real issue is in evangelicalism - power. Evangelicals are enamoured with power and control. That's why numbers and measures are so important to evangelicals, wnd why compliance is next to godliness. What's important to evangelicals is freeing you from the world that squeezes you into its mold so evangelicalism can, in turn, squeeze you into its mold. Evangelicals resist and dclare as enemy anything they can't control - including God, by the way. A post-evangelical is not a one-time evangelical who's given up on truth, she's an evangelical who's given up on control. - Mike Yaconelli [Beautiful!]

What Is a "Post-Evangelical"?
...to be post-evangelical is to take as given many of the assumptions of evangelical faith, while at the same time moving beyond its perceived limitations.

For the time being, we should note that during most of the twentieth century, evangelicals experienced and expressed their faith, and contended for the integrity and credibility of their faith, in the cultural environment of modernity. Post-evangelicals, on the other hand, live in an increasingly postpodern cultural environment. Consequently postmodernity influences the way they think about and experience their faith. Postmodernity has become the new context in which the integrity and credibility of their faith must be tested.

...our whole perception of the world - including our faith - is deeply influenced by culture and language. The way we perceive the being and person of God is influenced by culture, the way we think of redemption is influenced by culture, the way we imagine heaven is influenced by culture, and the way we approach the Bible is influenced by culture.

The idea that we can cimply pick up the Bible and read it, apart from any cultural conditioning is, quite frankly, nonsense. In fact, a great gulf lies between the cultural world of the Bible and our own world. We can (and do) seek to bridge that gulf, with the Spirit's illuminating help, through bilbical scholarship, but the gulf is there all the same. [It's the "baggage" thing. Interpretation is not (& cannot) be the same for all!] [*Kandinsky]

In his book Postmodernity, David Lyon cites consumerism and new information technologies as the reasons for this cultural shift. Our consumeristic attitude tward religion is a natural outgrowth of capitalism. What if we stopped marketing Christianity? Would it be more authentic? - Holly Rankin Zaher [Good question!]

The post-evangelical impetus, however, is to search for this fresh sense of spirituality, which they don't find in most evanglical circles, in the symbolic and contemplative traditions of the church rather than in the New Age movement. Celtic Christianity, as well as aspects of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, is often helpful. [This is my draw to the RCC. Not the rules, like Mom thinks.]

Post-evangelicals are more comfortable with the mysteries, ambiguities, and paradoxes of faith. [Duality]

For better or worse, our theology always informs our practices. - Timothy Keel

The only other thing I need to say at this point regarding the nature of the term post-evangelical is that it certainly doesn't describe a movement, as such. Drane says that the nature of the New Age movement is that relatively few people actually label themselves "New Agers," although an enormous number of people identify with some aspects of what New Age stands for. [Ana] It's fairly similar with post-evangelicalism: a lot of people who've never even heard the term - much less used it as a self-conscious label - will, I believe, identify strongly with much of what we are discussing. And they may not all be evangelicals. [Hah! Truth is here.]

Footnote: And This Is Me

Post-evangelicals must create the space where we can have these conversations, ask questions, muse, dream, laugh, and cry. - Holly Rankin Zaher [This is the purpose of me.]

02 - Just When We Thought We Had All the Answers... (Joseph R. Myers)
[A lot of historical stuff that - of course - isn't interesting to me...]
Revolution and Reformation
The Tectonic '60s
The Return of the Evangelical, Better Than Ever
The "Charismaticizing" of Mainstream Evangelicalsim
A New Generation of Evangelical Leaders Emerges
Piggyback Success
The Great American Pastime
[Ah, finally we get to some stuff I care about...]
Just When We Thought We Had All the Answers...

The fuel for evangelicalism is no so much running out as the increasing longing for God is making fuel unnecessary. What used to matter to evanglicalism doesn't matter anymore - not because it isn't true, but because it's obsolete. Instead of worrying about prepositional truth, biblical authority, and absolute truth, they're still concerned about dancing. - Mike Yaconelli

As a result, as evangelicals adapt to the new postmodern culture they find themselves in, they are beginning to shift on some of their traditional stances. The rest of the book explains how and why these shifts are taking place. At this point, however, it would be helpful to highlight some of the shifts:

from propositional expressions of faith to relational stories about faith journeys.
from the authority of Scripture alone to a harmony between the authority of Scripture and other personal ways God mysteriously and graciously speaks to Christians.
from a theology that prepares people for death and the afterlife to a theology for life.
from a personal individualistic, private faith to harmony between personal and community faith.
from anti-Catholic and anti-nonprotestant perspectives to greater acceptance and curiosity about other approaches to knowing God.
from the church being a place where people take up space to the church as a mission outpost that sends people out.
from an approach to missions that emphasizes mass conversions by individuals to "share the good news with the whole world" approach.
from arguing faith to the "dance of faith."
from salvation by event to a journey of salvation.
from a salvation of humanity to a salvation of all creation.
from a Western, American understanding of the gospel to a worldwide view.
from motivating through fear to motivating through compassion, community, and hope.
from a search for dogmatic truth to a search for spiritual experience.

The promises of science and an evangelical approach to theology and truth modeled on science's success are being challenged by a new search for spirituality.

Even as the heart of the gospel remains the same, Christianity continues to affect the culture and be affected by the culture. God is still at work. Who can define what the future expression of the church will be?

03 - Worlds Apart
...the post-evangelical impulse often draws its initial strength from the sense of irritation many people feel with evangelical "culture".

The gospel of Jesus has always found its way in new cultural settings, and not only by changing its methods, by also making adjustments to the message. Those who hold to a biblical understanding of the gospel are keenly aware that the gospel Jesus proclaimed was Good News that began with the blessing of Abraham. The Good News is good in particular contexts. It is not the case, as some seem to wishfully say, that the gospel is always the same. Can you imagine Christianity if we were left only with an expression of the activity of God from a past culture and time?
Those seeking to be "post-evangelical" and not anti-evangelical will always seek to keep the best of evangelicalism. This should be the understanding that the gospel is living and active in our world and is as fitting to our setting as any point in history. - Doug Pagitt

Rereading Paul's letter to the Philippians, I'm intrigued and challenged by his confidence that the Holy Spirit will work in that community. He writes, "I hope all of you who are mature Christians will agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must be sure to obey the truth we have learned already" (Philippians 3.15-16, NLT). Churches are God's domain, and not that of his disciples or apostles. Post-evangelicals are talking like Bediako, trying to identify how we've domesticated the gospel and how that kets in the way of proclaiming it. - Timothy Keel

The consequence of confusing Christianity with middle-class values is that people who don't identify with that culture reject the church and, in many cases, the gospel, too.

The expressions of the post-evangelical church around the world are often from younger people with hopes and dreams that extend beyond what their culture offers. ... Our post-evangelical sensitivity implores us to live beyond the American Dream that so strongly recruits the youth of America. - Doug Pagitt

And this doesn't simply affect African or working class people; it also affects a whole stratum of people - especially younger people - who do not identify with the status quo of the establishment at all.

We must stay quite aware that there is no "clean" version of Christianity. All expressions of Christianity are culturally affected, and that is a good thing. Therefore, we must resist any temptation to say that one understanding of Christianity is more pure or closer to that of Jesus'. Post-evangelicals are not expressing better Christianity, only a more fitting one for their setting. - Doug Pagitt

The Normative Nature of the Traditional Nuclear Family
The Confusion of Holiness with Respectability
Eat, Drink, and Be Compassionate

04 - Longing to Grow
People flock to evangelical churches after profoundly helpful evangelical encounters, only to become disillusioned further down the road. Why does this happen to some people while other evangelicals apparently remain perfectly happy? In this chapter, we shall explore the question with the help of two psychological models.

Stages of Personal Growth

My study of intentional Christian communities suggests that people are attracted to them because they offer a deeper level of faith. However, communities also tend to protect the "average" level of faith, and few encourage members to grow deeper than this average. This pattern holds true for local church communities. How will post-evangelicals create communities that offer a deeper level of spirituality and encourage different expressions of spirituality from people in different stages of faith? - Holly Rankin Zaher

Child's Play
A disturbing number of evangelicals seem neurotic and suffer from a poor self-image. People - sometimes even pastors - explain the most mundane details of their lives in terms of God or the Devil. When something good happens, it's the Lord. "He helped me find this job," they say, or "God showed me what I should do." Bad things, on the other hand, are either the Devil's fault or traced back to a personal spiritual fault. Thus, "The enemy was really attacking me," or perhaps, "I should have been obedient to the Spirit."

For many Christians, this language is the best they have to describe the spiritual dimensions of their lives. Many post-evangelicals might find it difficult to speak confidently about what God is doing in their lives, but that doesn't mean they have to disparage those who can. Granted, evangelical language is sometimes shopworn and robotic, but if we honour the spiritual experiences of skeptical post-evangelicals, we should also respect the more tangivle religious experience of many evangelicals. - Mark Galli

Parental Pressure
Some people drop out of evangelical churches because of their dislike for a parental voice insisting that church membership hinges on accepting prescribed doctrines or codes of behaviour. Sometimes the pressure to conform may be subtler - a look, a dropped invitation, implied criticism - yet no less powerful for that. Numerous evangelical churches and organizations will not allow speakers on their platforms unless they openly subscribe to an evangelical statement of faith.

The only decision that really counts is that which arises from genuine conviction, not coercion or the pressure of group dynamics. The apostle Paul speaks of sin reviving when the law comes, and he goes on to show that the law was powerless to affect real change (Romans 7 and 8).

A lot could be learned from modern management and teaching techniques in which old-style directional leadership has given way to an emphasis on facilitating people learning for themselves, making fully independent decisions - a much more Adult and, I believe, spiritual approach.

The Awakening Adult

... I would suggest that compliance and rebellion have their moments as healthy responses, and that experimentation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and constant questioning have their downsides.

When Jesus confronted the disciples about their handling of children, their mature and proper response was to comply. However, when Jesus was continually questioned about healing on the Sabbath, he rebelled against the laws of the Pharisees. Experimentation has its limits, inquisitiveness can turn to cynicism, creativity can easily get in the way of the simple, and constant questioning can become nothing more than grasping for attention. ...

... It seems to me that one of the ways we respond to dogmatism and the worship of authority is to resist people's attempts to make us conform. Resistance is worth choosing at times when we're pressured or forced to believe or to act in ways contrary to our beliefs. Resistance is one way our faith responds to narrowness, prejudice, and complacency. - Mike Yaconelli

St Paul's comments about being renewed in the mind are helpful here. All too often Paul's words are considered from a purely negative perspecitve, with the emphasis on what we should not be thinking. ... Of course we can interpret the renewed mind as one that's not paralyzed by greed, lust, and selfishness. But I think the term also suggests freedom to imagine how one might share, love, and encourage.

Why does the imagination scare so many evangelicals? Is it because it can't be controlled or measured? What if we really believed that God might, just might, be able to renew and sanctify our imagination along with our reason? Consider this prayer: "Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly devoted to you; and then use us, we pray you, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen." ("A Prayer of Self-Dedication," Book of Common Prayer) - Holly Rankin Zaher

The renewed mind has at least three qualities. First, it is an open mind willing to reconsider past positions. And oopen mind isn't gullible, but it thrives on doubts and questions, even when not governed by them. Open-minded people listen to even the most outlandish ideas in the hope of learning something.

Second, the renewed mind is sensitive to creative lateral possibilities. Edward de Bono argues that much thinking is locked into straight furrows and mental ruts. Lateral thinking breaks out of these ruts to consider unusual and obscure connections between different ideas. The potential for this sort of thinking is unleashed by interdisciplinary studies and religious ecumenism.

Third, renewed minds are reflective thinkers rather than merely repositories for new information.

Here Dave tackles one of the chief criticisms I often hear about postmodern culture. Many evangelicals believe postmodernism is just experiential and not intellectually reflective. Post-evanglicals will have to demonstrate that they don't treat the accumulation of experience the way modern evangelicals accumulated knowledge - and that they can be reflective and critical about both. - Holly Rankin Zaher

One final element we should expect of the renewed mind is that it be holistic. Renewed minds make emotion, intuition, and mystery equal partners of rationality. Critial reason alone produces a false consciousness that's inevitably reductionistic. As we shall see, this is an important area of divergence between post-evangelicals and liberals, whose reliance on reason discounts cognitive contributions from the non-rational.

05 - Liberals in Sheep's Clothing?
...while post-evangelical does mean something different than evangelical, it does not mean liberal.

"The Boogie Man Will Get You!"

Closed doors and crosses have always been the result of following Jesus. - Mike Yaconelli

Our tentative and imperfect doctrinal deliverances matter little to God, and labels less. A sincere search for truth, on the other hand, does matter a great deal to God!

"For those who think they have arrived have barely started out, but those who continue searching are closer to the destination than they realize."

Very few post-evangelicals I know are paralyzed by questions. The opposite is true. They have doubts about God and about Jesus, but the source of their doubts is the narrow evangelical definition of God and Jesus. Most post-evangelicals are evangelicals, but they can't fit their faith into the narrow, rigid mold evangelicals have constructed. They believe God is a mystery, which means he can't be contained or captured. They also believe God is a God of questions as well as answers, and post-evangelicals I know see questions as important as the answers. They believe in guarding the questions as well as the answers. This isn't belief in a vacuum, but belief that's alive, adventurous, and mysterious. This is belief that's passionate about what it knows, and equally honest about what it doesn't. These post-evangliecals believe that not knowing as as important to faith as knowing. - Mike Yaconelli

We stand at the end of a long Christian tradition in which pharisaism is seen as synonymous with self-righteousness and hyocrisy.

How do creedal affirmations function for post-evangelicals? Some hold that creeds should be public reminders of important confessional milestones for the Christian community. Pthers simply dismiss them as limiting and unhelpful tools for responding to God's work in their lives. I wonder whether ancient creeds birthed in response to ancient heresies call us to craft contemporary creeds in response to today's heresies? - Holly Rankin Zaher

The Parting of the Ways
Eventually, things began to change. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), one of the fathers of modern thought, sat down one chilly night, huddled up to the fire, and decided to question everything in his world - including his own existence. His momentous conclusion was that doubting his own existence was the only plausible demonstration that he really did, in fact, exist. Hence his famous dictum: cogito ergo sum ("I think therefore I am"). Modest as this declaration sounds, it shifted the whole basis of epistemology - the study of how we know things - from old certainties dictated by the church to a new process of independent reason and doubt.

Epistemology is key. For modernists - whether conservative, evangelical, or liberal - faith is usually reduced to the cold, hard facts. For post-evangelicals, faith is integrated into all of life. Thus, in my context, I often hear conversations about social justice, the environment, simplicity, innovation, and the arts as we discuss faith. - Holly Rankin Zaher [Well, now that we've explained Bethany & myself...]

The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Enlightenment gave birth to what's known as modernity, the modern cultural outlook. Modernity looks at the world in a critical way that takes nothing for granted. This approach is closely identified with the scientific method, which attempts to examine the world objectively, that is, free from preconditions or dogma.
The term premodern refers to the outlook that prevailed before the Enlightenment; it's sometimes also called precritical, since the prevailing religious, mythological, and superstitious attitudes of the day went virtually unchallenged.
Postmodernity is a movement that's developed over the last few decades (although its roots go back much further) as a reaction to the exalted position modernity has given to reason and objectivity.

We could alternately express this as:
Premodern - Precritical, Superstition, Mythology
Modern - Critical, Reason, Dymythologizing
Postmodern - Postcritical, Intuition, Remythologizing

At the 2003 Emergent convention, Chris Seay suggested that the Reformation may well have unnecessarily annihilated certain prevailing ideas and practices. He wondered whether or not we might be doing the same during the current cultural shift. Dave's chart suggests that two notions the Reformation did away with - myth and intuition - are now being rediscovered by postmodernity.

Friends of mine recently attended a "famine" weekend with their youth groups. The teaching was amazing, and working with the homeless was a powerful lesson, too. But the most powerful part of the weekend was doing lectio divina in an urban and poverty-stricen space that allowed for reflection, imagination, prayer, and, dare I say, intuition. - Holly Rankin Zaher

The Enlightenment transformed both Christian theology and European culture. ...in the nineteenth centurey liberalism rose to the challenge of modernizing Christianity.

Conservative believers in all denominations reacted to what they saw as the liberal sellout to modernism with a powerful backlash. ... Early in the twentieth century one group of conservative Christians even made a name for themselves - fundamentalists - by defending the doctrines that they believed constituted the irreducible fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Although fundamentalists are evangelicals, over time it became clear that not all evangelicals wanted to be seen as fundamentalists. ..."new enavnelical theology" that wasn't fundamentalist but did affirm historic evangelical doctrines. Many evangelicals continue to hold a similar position.

The Evangelical Option
Evangelicals have a deep love of and respect for the Scriptures. ... Evangelicals also have the acute expectation that God will speak to them through Scripture; that it is God's Word for them. ... Scripture is a sacrament, God's means for communicating to us.

...the heart of the gospel can be simply expressed while also challenging us on a personal level. ...the importance of presenting the gospel in a cogent manner to a world that still needs to hear it.

...there are also downsides to evangelicalism. ... Evangelicals tend to make an idol out of the Bible. ... While the Reformation also affirmed the uniqueness of Scriputer - sola Scriptura - it did so in a different context - Catholicism's emphasis on the authority of church tradition rather than on Scripture's authority.

I believe the main battleground is shifting for evangelicals. More and more are using the words Dave uses ("deep love of" and "respect for") when Scripture is concerned. Evangelicals are moving away from seeing Scripture as a battleground and to seeing it as a place where they meet God. They're moving away from understanding the word of God as a defense for doctrinal truth and toward understanding it as a living, interactive dialogue with the God of the universe. Not only do evangelicals gain understanding about God through Scripture, they also encounter God in the Scriptures. Not only do evangelicals read about how Jesus' followers lived differently, they are empowered to live differently. More and more evangelicals are experiencing the Bible as a friend rather than a proof text. - Mike Yaconelli

Sadly, there's a huge gulf between evangelical scholarship and evangelical churches. Evangelical scholarship generally accepts the necessity of biblical criticism and utilizes its insights and methods. In evangelical churches, however, one will often find an anti-biblical chriticism attitude.

...prevailing sense of certainty and absoluteness with respect to the evangelical understanding of just about anything. ...the lack of gray areas in evangelical churches. Virtually everything is taught in black or white terms. Preachers frequently denounce critical thinking as unbelief or a tool of the devil. This anti-critical credulity also shows up in the area of prayer. People thank God when prayers are "answered" and either forget their prayers or blame the devil when they go unanswered.

We ought to respect the spiritual experiences many evangelicals profess, even when they don't match our own. - Mark Galli

The Liberal Option
...liberalism has its own kind of fundamentalist problem. ...S.W. Sykes, ...liberal fundamentalist approach:

Liberalism in theology is that mood or cast of mind which is prepared to accept that some discovery of reason may count against the authority of a traditional affirmation in the body of Christian theology. One is a theological liberal if one allows autonomously functioning reason to supply arguments against traditional beliefs and if one's reformulation of Christian belief provides evidence that one has ceased to believe what has been traditionally believed by Christians.

...influenced and shaped as much by its conflict with conservative Christianity as fundamentalism has been by its conflict with liberalism.

John Habgood, ...conservative liberal...:

...for me [liberalism] represents an openness in the search for truth which I believe is profoundly necessary for the health of religion. We grow in knowledge, only insofar as we are prepared to criticize what we think and know already. True knowledge is tested knowledge, just as true faith has to be sifted with doubt. Openness in the search for truth also entails a positive, but again critical, approach to secular knowledge... It is essentially about honesty, but an honesty rooted in what God has given us, both in revelation and in the created world.

...positive yet critical approach to secular knowledge.

One little-acknowledged attraction of liberalism for many believers i that it offers an escape from the harder edges of discipleship. When I was a pastor, I had more than one conversation with former fundamentalists who became Presbyterians so that they wouldn't feel guilty about not reading their Bibles or giving a tithe or whatever. These people were also not receptive to my preaching about the cost of discipleship. - Mark Galli

...post-evangelicals accept the supernatural nature of the gospel and the possibility of miracles. The Bible plays a normative part in their understanding of doctrine and practical Christian living, and they readily affirm the Apostles' Creed.

Two Sides of the Same Coin
Actually, both evangelicalism and liberalism are rooted in modernism, which is why post-evangelicals oriented to postmodernism don't feel comfortable with either option.

In their lectures and books, many evangelicals offer a "solution" for the "problem" of postmodernity. But postmodernity isn't a problem; it's a culture. As any missionary can tell you, every culture is full of great opportunities for God to be revealed and areas that need God's redemption. When it comes to postmodernity, we need to ask "What, exactly, needs redemption?" and "Where is God already at work?" The goal is answering those two questions. - Holly Rankin Zaher

In order to accomodate critical reinterpretation of the Bible, evangelicals also increasingly oscillate between literal and non-literal interpretations. Far from being arbitrary, this oscillation is controlled by the need to defend the modernist presupposition that for the Bible to be "true" it must not contain any factual errors. With the increase of scientific knowledge that undermines traditional beliefs about the nature of the universe or evolution, evangelicals have shifted more and more of Scripture from the "literal" category to the "non-literal" one.

Post-Evangelicalism...? - Part 1 of 3

2006-08-26T15:53:00.000-06:00

The Post-Evangelical
(Dave Tomlinson)

Smothering Jesus in a Heap of Trivialities - A Foreword by Dallas Willard
...what Tomlinson calls post-evangelicalism is by no means ex-evangelicalism.

...post-evangelicals are evangelicals, perhaps tenaciously so.

...post-evangelicals have also been driven to the margins by some aspects of evangelical church culture with which they cannot honestly identify.

...inner conflict... usually rooted in a simple but devastating situation... the details of what is "only right and proper" to achieve social acceptance within the evangelical group increasingly focus upon things that have little to do with the heart of evangelical faith, or even run counter to it. However, these details are treated as basic, or at least highly desirable, if one wishes to maintain status as an "acceptable" evangelical Christian.

Thus, in Jesus' day, there wiere people who painstakingly gave a tithe of one seed in ten from their herb garden, and yet disregarded justice and the love of God. They replaced, probably without even realizing it, the genuine commandments of God with the traditions of human beings. Tragically, this kind of incongruity drives people - who will never be anything but evangelical in their deepest beliefs - to the margins or out the doors of the evangelical church. [This is the problem I want to fight!]

While our secular culture may have some influence on the move toward a post-evangelical posture, most of the motivation in that direction, as I have observed it through the years, is from within evangelical teaching and experience. This is due to an inherent tension that has always existed within the evangelical tradition. On one hand, it emphasizes as essential a personal, life-transforming experience of God. The one thing that has always been distinctive to evangelical Christianity is its rejection of second-hand faith, mediated through institutions of which one is a member. On the other hand, the evangelical tradition takes the certain interpretations of the Bible, or certain biblical texts, as ultimate authority on what is to be believed and practiced. These two elements of evangelical Christianity are in constant tension. [Duality.]

...anytime a significant social group or institution develops around a teaching or an individual, authority typically wins out.

The vital relationship to Jesus is smothered in a heap of trivialities.

We shouldn't spend too much time worrying about the failures of other forms of religion, Christian or not. We must accept that the house of God - where judgment begins - is our house.

We haven't figured out what the spiritual life is really like, inside and out.
We haven't dealt successfully with the challenge of transforming our characters into routine Christlikeness.
We haven't succeeded in transforming our workplaces and vocations into extensions of the kingdom of Christ.
We haven't learned how to live in God's power in every aspect of our lives. "Whatever you do in word or deed," as Paul told us, "do all in the name of [on behalf of, in the power of] the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3.17) How do evangelicals do that?

The post-evangelicals among us - and they are among us, in large numbers - are for the most part those who, because of their evangelical insights or suspicions, cannot accept a form of evangelical religious culture that makes the heart of evangelical faith irrelevant and the heart of the prophetic biblical tradition anything but subversive. We need to listen to them openly and carefully as we continue to study our Bibles and seek to hear from God.

Introduction
...people who struggle with restrictions in evangelical theology, spirituality, and church culture - yet who still desire to pursue their faith journey.

The post-evangelical impulse does not necessarily imply a move away from Christian orthodoxy or evangelical faith.

...an attempt to articulate the experience, thoughts, and feelings of post-evangelicals, as well as to help them understand, refine, and critique their experiences.

One conservative writer went so far as to admit: "The weaknesses Tomlinson identifies in evangelicalism are genuine, and there is a potentially large constituency of Evangelicals who, without reading his book, may nevertheless soon seize on its title to describe their own position."

Now, nine years later, many people do customarily refer to themselves as "post-evangelical," whether or not they have read the book, or even heard of it.

I wrote the book for disaffected evangelicals in their twenties or early thirties (Generation Xers), whose general outlook and attitudes were significantly influenced by post-modern culture.

The letters told stories about the struggles people experienced trying to make sense of their faith in churches not always comfortable with their questions. Some talked about intellectual tussles with doctrines they couldn't swallow, others of longings for a deeper spirituality. Some were frustrated at the lack of social and political engagement in their churches, others cringed at self-righteous moralizing. Most found the evangelical subculture insular, self-congratulatory, and often, embarrassing.

Many of the letters I received also voiced exasperation at the sense of certainty and hype experienced in some evangelical churches, where they found it particularly hard to express disquiet or to question prevailing attitudes. Indeed, I contend that the fundamentalist tone in much charismatic theology fuels the post-evangelical impulse.

...the widespread nature of the post-evangelical impulse suggests that it is much more than just a reaction against extreme fundamentalism.

Wherever there are evangelicals (in the Western world, at least), there are post-evangelicals, whether or not they adopt that label.

...even though their faith journeys differ from those in the evangelical camp, they find themselves traveling the same road, perhaps as "post-Catholics" or "post-liberals," for example.

We shouldn't be surprised that an impulse similar to post-evangelicalism is shared in different ways by people around the world and in different sections of the Church. The changes we evangelicals are experiencing are linked, after all, to a wider cultural shift in Western societies.
The notion that our broader cultural context shapes how evangelicals and all other Christians "do" church will be highly suspect for many evangelicals. They believe that the message of Christ must be, and can be, protected from cultural entanglements.

...I am advocating critical engagement with the wider culture, not unthinking absorption into it.

Christians must engage contemporary culture if they wish to know how to make the good news of Jesus relevant to people in that culture. By engaging critically, Christians will also identify those elements in postmodern culture (e.g., hedonism) that run counter to the claims of Christ.

Much more work is needed to develop post-evangelical themes...

...the book comes from a pastoral concern. I hope it empowers ordinary people with the confidence to think for themselves as they explore the breadth of the Christian community...

Jesus on the Shore.

2006-08-22T22:23:00.000-06:00

Last night at Tehillah, the speaker, Nolan Clark, spoke about when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shore after they'd been fishing all night. This wasn't the first time he appeared to them after his resurrection.

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

The theme of the talk last night was about following Jesus, going to him when he appears on the shore - swimming through our own shame and fear and doubt, and just going to him.

It was quite a good talk, but this post isn't so much about the talk as it is about some of the images it reminded me of as I listened.

But her resolve was badly shaken when she reached the division. To be sure the tunnel that veered left had green light with no other attraction. It was the blue tunnel that frightened her. She could see that soon a chasm opened up, and that to cross it she would have to walk along a narrow roughhewn log about as long as Grosvenor Avenue was wide.

There was no point in pursuing the other tunnel. She knew by now that it would lead her falsely. But the chasm? She crept to the edge of it and peered down cautiously. It glowed with a soft red light. She saw that it was deep but did not dare lean forward to see how deep.

Stepping back she knelt, then lay down flat and inched her way forward until her head was over the edge. What she saw made her sick with fear. She could no see the bottom. The sheer walls of the chasm seemed to stretch down endlessly. As she stared at the vast drop beneath her she began to feel not only sick but dizzy. Tremblingly she pulled herself back and stood up again, well back from the chasm's mouth. How was she to get across?

In the distance, on the other side of the chasm, she saw that someone was walking toward her. Whoever it was walked with a swinging stride, vigorous and strong. As he (she was sure it must be a he) drew closer, she could see that he wore a simple white robe and that his hair and beard were also white. This puzzled her, for he walked with the vigor of someone young and strong. His back was straight and his shoulders broad. A sword in a scabbard hung from a gold belt around his waist. "Perhaps he's very blond," she thought to herself. "It's hard to tell in this light. But in any case, maybe he can help me over that awful log." The man was soon approaching the far end of the chasm. When he got there he stood and smiled at her. His hair was white and his beard too. But his brown eyes were young. And so was his face. Or was it?

Afterward when she tried to describe his face, she could never do so. It was young yet it was old, very, very old. It was merry yet it spoke of untold sorrows. It was kind yet it was stern; tender yet incredibly tough; gentle yet as strong as steel. As she stared at him across the chasm she felt both terribly glad to see him and terribly afraid. She was so afraid in fact that for the moment she forgot her terror of the chasm.

"Lisa, you must cross the bridge."

His voice was warm and deep. He was not scolding her, just stating a fact. Yet she knew he was also giving her an order.

"Who are you?" She already knew but she had to ask.

"I am the Shepherd, Gaal."

"You don't look like a shepherd. Where's your shepherd's crook? Where are your sheep?"

"Anthropos is one of my sheep/"

"But Anthropos is a country."

"Countries are my sheep but so are you... if you want to be."

If she wanted to be?

A rush of feeling rose from the soles of her tired, sore feet to the crown of her head. Oh, how she wanted him to be her Shepherd! Somehow he was more comforting than ten Uncle Johns all rolled into one. Tired, hungry, weary and a little frightened too, she longed to belong to the man on the other side of the chasm.

But instantly she was aware of two things. Could he see how dirty she was? How sticky? How ugly? Did he relaly know that she had once said there was no Shepherd? Did he know she had been ready to side with the magician and to betray Kardia? the second thing that frightened her was the chasm. He made no attempt to cross it, but stood on the far side waiting for her.

"Do you want me to be your Shepherd, Lisa?"

"She hung her head. "Yes."

"You don't sound very happy with the idea."

"I'm scared. You might not want me if you knew..."

"If I knew about your sticky hands? And your smudgy face? If I knew you had said I didn't exist? If I knew you wanted to join Hocoino and said you hated your Uncle John? I know all these things, Lisa, yet I would still like you to be my sheep. The question is, Do you want me to be your Shepherd?"

Lisa's head was still bent. "Will I have to cross the chasm?"

"Yes."

"I'm scared to."

"I know. But I won't let you fall."

"The log may not be steady."

"I put it there myself. It's as steady as the rock on both sides of the chasm."

Lisa looked again at the wood and saw something she had not noticed before. On the far side there was a bar, resting in a slot in the rock. The rough bridge was a T shape, with the crosspiece at the T at the far end.

"I'm scared. I really am scared. You don't know what it's like..."

"I do know. I know the terror in your heart. But I will never let you fall."

Lisa was trembling. Somehow she knew that behind her lay everything in her past, not only the ugly and shameful things that had happened in Anthropos, but all that she was and had been.

"What if you're not real? What if you're only another of my wishes like Hocoino or Uncle John?"

"In that case I won't be able to help you. If you stumble on the log you will fall. But I am real and I will not let you fall."

"How can I know whether you can help me or not, whether you're real or merely my wish?"

"Only by crossing the chasm."

"And if I fall?" She could scarecely say the words so fiercely did her heart beat.

"I will reach out and catch you."

Lisa remembered a game she had played as a child, a game which you may have played yourself, of falling backward, trusting the person behind you to catch you. But this was far, far worse.

She hated to say she didn't see how he could. "But the gap is much wider than your arms."

"Is it?"

"It sure looks like it."

"Lisa, look at me!"

Lisa lifted her head and looked at his amazing face. He held her eyes in his.

"Lisa, do you think I would let you fall?"

She gazed at him steadily. As she did so something was born in her that had never been there before. Suddenly she knew how groundless, indeed how silly her fears had been.

"No. You wouldn't let me fall. You wouldn't ever let me fall."

"Then keep looking at me and walk forward. That's right! Now a little to the left. Good. Now put your right food forward." She felt wood under her foot, solid wood, but she kept her eyes on Gaal. "Keep looking at me, Lisa. Walk toward me. That's right. Keep on walking."

Never for a moment did she take her eyes from Gaal's face - never, that is, until she was about two feet from him. Then it occurred to her that she must be just about across the bridge. The temptation to look down to see became too great.

Instantly she realized her mistake. Endlessly below the thin bridge a vast gulf fell downward. With a scream she swayed dizzily and knew that nothing could prevent her from plunging into it. Wildly she waved her arms in an effort to maintain her balance. One foot slipped and she found herself falling sideways.

Strong hands gripped her arms. Strong arms lifted her clear of the rough wood. Suddenly she was pressed against Gaal's soft white robe and found his arms around her, holding her close. She shut her eyes tightly, felt him lift her and walk several paces away from the chasm.

Then he set her down, still holding her closely.

"It is never good to look down."

"No, Gaal."

"But you are safe now."

"Yes, Gaal."

The Tower of Geburah, John White, pages 174-179
© 1978 by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of the United States of America

The volume and closeness of the voice shocked her, and she stopped in her tracks, looking piteously at Gaal. But he was bending over, wetting his fingers with the blood that came out of his scar. "Come, Mary. Don't be afraid."

As she reached him he said, "Kick off the shoe on your right foot!" She did so, letting her bare foot rest on the sand and trying not to think of the witch's voice, still talking in her ears. Then Gaal took the warm blood on his fingers and wiped it first on her big toe, then on the thumb of her right hand, and then, to her surprise, on the lobe of her right ear. A broad smile lit up his face. "Now you are mine," he said, "and the witch has no more power over you!"

At once the voice in her ears was gone, and there was no more smell. Faint sounds still came from the crystal ball, but she could not tell what they were about. More important she was in her own body again - overweight, pimply, but free. A rush of warmth rose from the soles of her feet. The joy she had experienced at the time she had heard the stars clap their hands exploded inside her again, and she flew like a cannonball at Gaal. His arms were wide apart and both of them fell to the sandy floor.

"Gaal!" she shouted in amazement. "Oh, I'm sorry!" They had falling to the floor from Mary's impact. "You're really not mad at me? You still want me?"

He scrambled to his feet, pulled her up with him, and holding her by both hands burst into the merriest laughter. Then he twirled her in mad circles dancing and laughing with the laughter of deep heaven. "Why do you think I came all this way to find you?" he shouted back, "How long d'you think I've been chasing you, Mary McNab? And now I have you!" His voice rose in a whild song, and as they danced a new wonder came to Mary McNab. He had actually wanted her! Gaal was so glad about it that he seemed crazy with joy. Her legs were alive with energy, and she felt she wanted to go on dancing forever. She had one shoe off and the other shoe on, but what did she care about shoes?

The Iron Sceptre, John White, pages 300-301
© 1981 by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of the United States of America

I love these books. And in re-reading this second passage, the one about Mary being claimed by God though she feels completely unworthy of his love, I am reminded of myself.

It brings tears to my eyes. This girl who is not perfect, who feels so completely unworthy of anyone's love... she has discovered the love of God, and she is filled with amazement and joy.

I feel like this Mary a lot of the time. I feel unworthy. I feel "not enough", "less than", grungy, ugly... any horrible word you can think of, I have probably felt it.

But how awesome - how amazing - how beautiful - how wonderful! To know that God is seeking after me, though I am imperfect. To know that he loves me, in all my imperfections.

To know that he'll keep me safe if I start to fall off the bridge, and he'll clean me up and give me lovely clothes to wear and make me beautiful, if I'll just take that first step and come to him.

He loves me. In spite of - perhaps even because of - these things that I don't like about myself.

I'm not talking about sin. I'm not talking about the bad things I do that I know I oughtn't do. Shame rarely takes hold of my spirit. I'm talking about self-loathing, that mind-set everyone falls into once in a while, where nothing we do is right and everything we try falls to pieces and we're not worthwhile and should never have been born and... you get the picture.

Yet he loves me. When I'm in the middle of thinking all of these horrible things about myself, he loves me. And he's after me, chasing me down.

Me. He wants me. No matter what.

Grace & Being Noticed.

2006-08-16T23:11:00.000-06:00

Sometimes... sometimes it's about us noticing God, not about him noticing us. We rush around seeking answers to our problems without realising that we could simply turn to him and be healed... the end of that is when we reach out and touch the hem of his robe, asking to be noticed. Other times, we seek him frantically, only to find ourselves already caught up in his arms.

Grace is when he looks after us without us even realising what he's doing.

Passion.

2006-08-14T23:44:00.000-06:00

I want to have passion.

I found my cassette of Kevin Prosch today. It's called Reckless Mercy. I absolutely, positively adore this album. It's raw. It's a picture of Kevin's heart, ripped wide open and laid out for everyone to see, no questions asked, no worries about what someone else might think or say, no thought to appearances... just prayer and song and worship and praise and... God.

Passion.

That's the word that best describes this album.

Passion.

There is passion in Kevin's voice, in his lyrics, in his music. Passion is stamped all over the cassette, and it winds its way into my soul every time I listen to it.

Sometimes I wonder if I know how to be passionate. What does passion look like in my life?

I guess it's excitement, for one thing. And joy, for another. Wonder, amazement, awe. Breathlessness. Vibration.

Passion doesn't seem to last long for me, though. It flares up and then is snuffed out again almost faster than it rose up in the first place. I don't know if it's me - as in, my nature - causing this or if it's a trick of Satan to get me to stay put. Could be both.

Passion, for me, isn't something I can just have. It's not going to stick around without work on my part. I'm going to have to work on being passionate the way I've had to work to learn how to stay on schedule and keep things clean and the like.

I know I can do it, the question is...

...how long will it take me to reach the point of no return, so that all of me is like Reckless Mercy all the time?

Cuz that's what I want most.

Sermon notes from yesterday.

2006-07-24T12:12:00.000-06:00

Spiritual Reflection

How does it happen for you?
Looking for how Scripture ties into our lives & with itself.

Praying for Peace

Disunity is the natural state for humanity.
The way to heal disunity is in God's purpose.
God knows us and yearns to bring us into his purpose.
Our signs are all different because we are all unique.
God involves self in the world & in us; Jesus is our rallying point.

Ephesians Reading (Ephesians 2.11-22)

So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision"—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Lots of imagery taken from Jewish ritual.
v 13 (But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.) recalls the sacrifices of old; there's a sacrifice involved.
v 14 (For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,) outer court/inner court dividing wall.
v 18 (For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.) this is about the Trinity; introduction of somebody to royalty.

Prayer

We have to be a praying community.
Prayer is passion, from the heart, intentional.
Prayer is what we do; our life in Christ is who we are.

The Taizé Community

A community of prayer.
Oray for unity among all Christians, and in the world.
People go and pray for hours.
The one place in the world where Catholics & non-Catholics can all partake of the Sacrament of the Eucharist together.
For more information, click here.

I wonder how others follow this? The man who was taking the service yesterday is always interesting, but his sermons don't always seem to follow a logical course. That's okay by me, since my mind is somewhat tangential, but it's a bit disorienting sometimes.

Regardless... it got me to thinking about how doing my daily devotional blog has really opened up that first point to me. It "clicked" for me. I quite like writing those devotionals, and it's wonderful to be spending time in the Word every day.

And the emphasis on prayer is so important, so good! Prayer really needs to be emphasized more in the church, I think. God wants us to pray, to spend time with him, to talk to him. We need to do that daily!

And my thoughts are, I think, more disorganized than the sermon was, so I'll stop now...

Something to think about...

2006-07-23T23:27:00.000-06:00

Andrea’s post about Counselling (Good vs Bad) got me thinking.

Specifically, this definition of Good counselling:

Good counseling (Gc) helps the client to determine problems they are facing, and what they need to solve them, and how they can acquire the tools needed to do so. The counselor works with a person, not for them or to them. It’s about respecting the client, and presuming competency on the client’s part, including the client as the local expert on their self.

In other words, Gc is empowering. The client needs to have their own power to make decisions. They need to have resources and information made available to them so they can make their own choices. Those choices need to be real choices, not dilemmas sold as choices. People need to feel like they are masters of their own fate, and also be able to understand the boundaries of what things they can change.

Clients also need to learn how to be able to reframe how they understand things in a more constructive manner, so they can take the things learned and be able to continue to help themselves later on. A child’s job is to play, learn and grow, and so is an adult’s. We all need to continue to learn new skills and approaches throughout our lives as our situations change, and as our abilities to do things also change. There is no one place in life where one is done learning; it’s an ongoing, lifelong process. To be able to do this the client needs education, not just in the form of information, but also in the process of making thoughtful decisions with this kind of information.

But to do all that the counselor has to be able to figure out – with the client – not just what the problems are, but also what the client thinks is important: the things they need to solve, or skills they need to acquire. If something is important to the client, then it’s important! The counselor should address the subject with them. People need to be able to make decisions about things that are important to them in their lives.

What it’s got me thinking about is the question of Spiritual Direction, and just how different, really, is it from Counselling?

Supposedly, the two are very different from each other. But what Andrea says here about Counselling fits perfectly all I’ve read about Spiritual Direction.

So I wonder, now, if perhaps Counselling really is a good choice for me, after all? I’m not sure. I need to think about this some more.

Psalm 28 :: Prayer for Help and Thanksgiving for It

2006-07-18T10:11:00.000-06:00

To you, O Lord, I call;

my rock, do not refuse to hear me,

for if you are silent to me,

I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

Hear the voice of my supplication,

as I cry to you for help,

as I lift up my hands

toward your most holy sanctuary.

Do not drag me away with the wicked,

with those who are workers of evil,

who speak peace with their neighbors,

while mischief is in their hearts.

Repay them according to their work,

and according to the evil of their deeds;

repay them according to the work of their hands;

render them their due reward.

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord,

or the work of his hands,

he will break them down and build them up no more.

Blessed be the Lord,

for he has heard the sound of my pleadings.

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

in him my heart trusts;

so I am helped, and my heart exults,

and with my song I give thanks to him.

The Lord is the strength of his people;

he is the saving refuge of his anointed.

O save your people, and bless your heritage;

be their shepherd, and carry them forever.

New Resolve. (Tehillah.)

2006-07-17T23:19:00.000-06:00

In calling myself a failure, I call you a failure. I am saying that you made a mistake when you created me. And that is a lie, because you made me, and you know me, and when you finished making me, you stepped back to look at your creation, and you pronounced me good.

My mistakes & failures don't make me a failure, they make me human. And that's okay. I'm allowed to be human, I'm allowed to be imperfect. Even though I feel like I need to try harder, to be more, to be better than I am.

It's like I have to do better than anyone else, just to be worthy of notice - never mind worthy of love.

That doesn't make sense. How can that even begin to work as an approach to life?

There Must Be More Than This

I have to work so hard, just to achieve the kind of success other people just get. God, my relationship with you, and my creative pursuits... those are the only things that come remotely easily to me (and you know how discontented I can feel about our relationship).

I need help in every other area of my life. Help me to figure this out, God. Help me to find solutions to these problems I have - people to look after things for me, to teach me how to handle them myself... I don't want things to get this big for me again.

It just distracts me.

The Stand

My Offering

I am reminded of the first picture you gave me - the one that I knew was for me, from you, the one of the field. And that reminds me that I've been crowned with praise & gratitude... that name you gave me.

How awful that I let that crown be sullied and dirtied and scuffed by my own selfishness and pride and despair. But you... you not only pick me up out of the dirt, you retrieve my crown, you dust us both off, you shine the crown, and then you place it back on my head.

God you aren't just the lifter of my head, you are my king, my protector, my guide - you are my head!

And this crown, of praise and of gratitude, this crown is my glory, for your glory.

And I wear it with much humility.

Retreating.

2006-07-12T10:11:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking about taking part of my holidays this year at King's Fold Retreat & Renewal Centre. I would just go for a couple of days, I think.

Some time to read, to think and meditate, to sing, worship, praise, whatever... just to be with God... that would be very nice, I think.

I want to do a solitary retreat, but I don't necessarily want to do a fasting retreat. So I'll have to think about that, decide just how long I want to stay and so on. But I can do it in the middle of the week if I like, so it should be easy to reserve space - I'll decide what and when, and then I'll call them by the end of this week, I think.

Just the chance to get away completely, to not be in the midst of the bustle of the city... to be able to spend time alone with God without feeling like I ought to be doing something else... to have the time to really listen to him and discern where he's leading me... to do some writing, some creating...!

It's been a long time since I took a real holiday - a holiday that was truly a break from everything - responsibilities, people, everything. Even just a couple of days will refresh me, renew me, give me the energy and strength to continue with my life!

Mash of Ideas; may not make a lot of sense initially, but bear with me.

2006-07-04T22:20:00.000-06:00

A Day in the Life of Jesus
Sunday Service, Holy Trinity - the Rev'd Stephen Hambidge.
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, "Who touched me?' " He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Mark 5.21-43
That day, Jesus was interrupted.
but could interruptions be opportunities for God's grace?
Jesus is saying he is not too busy for me.
That day, Jesus offered more than people imagined.
Jesus has more to give to me; he wante to meet my deepest need.
What might Jesus say is my deepest need?
am I willing to go to him that my need might be met?
That day, Jesus called somebody to live.
As life was offered to the girl, so is it offered to me.
Am I living in the fullness of life that Jesus wants me to live?
If I was given the chance to live life over, what changes would I make?
Jesus says to me today, "Get up, and live!"

Extravagant Worship
Monday Night Tehillah - Pastor Johnny Strutt
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."
Mark 14.3-9

What the woman did with the perfume was untinkable to many of the people in the room.
She broke the jar.

when you break something, you can't control how it comes out.

God doesn't appreciate tokenism.

break open the hard places and let everything pour out to God.
She broke her pride.

she didn't care what anyone else thought, just that she could be close to and be changed by Jesus.

All that matters is whether or not God is pleased.
She broke protocol.

Jesus doesn't care about protocol; there's just coming to him and being accepted by him, drawn into him.

when you make Jesus your priority, everything else shifts in relation to that.
Jesus didn't have any boundaries for us.
She broke her potential.

she had limited expectations for the future; now she is remembered in the Gospel.

She is no longer a nobody. She is a Somebody.
Extravagant worship is letting God have everything.
Jesus didn't say that anyone else would be remembered in this way.
When you give God extravagne worship, it is not only your life that is going to change.
the atmosphere changes.
other people's lives are changed.
It's a spiritual scent. Other people's spirits smell the difference. They smell God on you. The scent rubs off on those around you.

11/29/04
To accept the love of God. To accept the love of others. To accept comfort from God. To accept comfort from others. To connect with God. To connect with others. To truly know God. to truly know others. To leave behind the fear of being hurt - again... again... again. to step out in faith and proclaim Him boldly. To follow the dreams He's placed in your life. To hold on to the knowledge - the certain belief - of His guidance. To clutch at the hem of His robe when all that's left is that desperate, despairing hope that He'll notice you this time...

He notices you. He's noticed you from the very beginning... He's been waiting for you to notice Him again. He's always been there, beside you, within you, surrounding you. It's what He does. He's got only good in store for you. He's the only protection you can count on when those demons come after you (and you know it's them when they come).

I have something to say about all of this. I do.

It started during the sermon on Sunday, this desire - this need - to write about being noticed by God. It's been gestating. I don't have a nice, neat essay about it to share just yet. This is messy stuff, really. Breaking open the seal on the jar and letting it all spill out however it may. But that's okay. It doesn't have to be neat, doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be.

Stephen was talking about the woman with the bleeding that went on for twelve years, and I thought of the bit of writing from November 2004 (quoted just above). And then the connection with the little girl struck me - she was twelve years old. Both were given new life, really.

Jesus felt the power go out of him when the woman touched his robe. She believed that she would be healed if she could just touch the hem... and she was right. She was right. How amazing is that? She was right! Except she probably hadn't counted on him turning around, looking for the person who'd just touched him. So when she threw herself at his feet, she was hoping for mercy, I'm sure.

And she got it.

I don't think Jesus was mad that she had touched him, that she had been healed. I think he was probably more hurt than anything else - that she hadn't asked him for that healing instead of trying to steal it from him.

But what connection does the woman's twelve years of bleeding have with the twelve year old girl who died and was wakened back into her life? And what connection have these with me?

I "died" when I was thirteen years old. Just woke up one morning and decided I'd died in the night. I have no idea why, I just remember making the decision. And until very recently, I've felt... separate from my womanhood. Becoming integrated is no easy process, but it is happening. The story that tells us of these two gives me hope that I can be healed, that I can be given that new life that I so desire.

And what of the third woman spoken of in this post?

She gave him everything she had. Extravagant worship.

I am reminded once more of the name God has crowned me with: Lathana. Gratitude & Praise.

I think that, by embracing this title, I may yet flourish. I may yet learn grace. I may yet begin to live up to my name of warrior.

To do this, I must call forth the little girl who was left locked in the classroom. I must revive the teen who chose death. And I must embrace the woman I am becoming.

And through it all, I must offer my Lord, my God, the gratitude and praise he is due.

I am Becoming.

Beyond Time

2006-06-15T23:54:00.000-06:00

A friend and I were talking about time, and timing, and shifts and all manner of other things that impact our lives, and suddenly... a question, a revelation.

God is beyond time. He sees all, He knows all, and His timing has nothing to do with hours and minutes and days and weeks and all these things that we finite human beings use to track our lives. No, God's timing has everything to do with the state of our hearts, and the "when" of the becoming.

And so I wondered aloud if perhaps those of us who have very little concept of the passage of time are somehow "closer to the heart of God" because of it.

What a thought.

Because it means that, when we "lose ourselves" in that which He has called us to, we are truly acting within His will and within His heart. When I am creating and I lose track of the time, it is because I am closer to Him at that moment than I am when I'm watching the clock to see when I get to leave class, or work, or whatever I feel is binding me.

Wow.

God is good. So is music.

2006-06-08T21:38:00.000-06:00

I had a perfectly awful day today. I woke up "on the wrong side of the bed" this morning. I just felt wrong, and I couldn't get out of the funk. Not that I really tried all that hard to cheer up.

After writing tomorrow's devotion, I took a hint from my own writing and pulled out some songs and my guitar. I played and sang for maybe half an hour, and it was good. And then I wrote a song. So I did "sing a new song" tonight. And I like it, for whatever the song is worth in and of itself.

Tonight's Soundtrack
40 (U2)
The Prodigal (Michael Larson)
Blessing (Janna Hoskin)
Eagle's Wings (Reuben Morgan)
Unto the King Eternal (Joey Holder)
There Must Be More :: Consuming Fire (Tim Hughes)
He Knows My Name (Tom Walker)

These lyrics, from the last song, made me cry: "He knows my name, / He knows my every thought / He sees each tear that falls / And hears me when I call."

*sigh*

But you know, there is healing in music. I chose the songs I did because they have spoken to me in the past, and I knew they would speak to me tonight. I had many others to sing, but I stopped after He Knows My Name because it was all I needed. And because I had a song that needed to be written.

When I Fall Down - Janna Hoskin; 08.06.2006

When I fall down again
Reach in and lift me up
I long to soar above this pain
Please come and fill my cup.

I cry out to you for healing
more times than I know I ought
but oh this hurt I'm feeling
from pretending something I'm not
Teach me to be my self.

When I reach out to you
Bless me with your song
I want to sing like angels do
Though waiting seems so long.

I cry out to you for healing
more times than I know I ought
but oh this hurt I'm feeling
from pretending something I'm not
Teach me to be my self.

I'm waiting here for your blessing
I'm waiting for your time
I'm waiting here for your power
I'm waiting for your sign

I cry out to you for healing
more times than I know I ought
but oh this hurt I'm feeling
from pretending something I'm not
Teach me to be my self.

Teach me to be my self.

I'm not all better yet. I don't know how long it'll take to get there. But I'm well on my way now, and it's because of God, and because of music, and I'm really incredibly glad I have this mode of expression open to me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'd better write Tom an e-mail...

Parallels, shifts, and the continuing story...

2006-06-06T13:47:00.000-06:00

I’m seeing recurring themes in the sermons, talks, and homilies I am receiving when at church services lately. So here I offer you my writing along these lines.

04.06.06 - In response to the homily given at Christ Church that morning.

The Spirit comes and makes possible the dreams of our hearts. Waiting isn’t bad! We wait only for the start of the story, the start of our lives. Forcing things to happen too soon will destroy them. It is so important that we learn patience, that we force waiting rather than expediency. How else can we know the fullness that is life in the presence of God?

I have said in the past that I am not a patient person. And I’m not. I want what I want when I want it, and that’s all there is to it. But I know I need to learn to wait, to allow things to happen in their own time.

05.06.06 - During the initial singing at Tehillah.

Shift & accelerate.
I need to PUSH, to FOCUS.
pray until something happens
fully offer & commit unto sanctification

Shift focus. Accelerate into this new way of being, this new way of seeing.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” - Proverbs 29.18
Press in, press on, press down, press up, press out.

Iron out the wrinkles.
Prioritize
Work
Tom
Writing
blogs
Sylvie’s Song
devotionals
Artwork

I’ve stalled… forgot to accelerate through the shift… forgot I wasn’t driving an automatic. This lack of action is completely my own fault… I’m the one who was given the green light & sat there & forgot to get going.

NO MORE.

I have the time, I just have to use it. I have to use it. I have to use my time when I get home from the office. I need to write. Write my book. Write devotionals for the next day. I need to do this. I have the time.

I have the tools. More & more, I am learning that I have these tools, and I am unpacking them… learning to use them. (May I always use them to glorify God!) I need to use these tools, these gifts, if I’m going to truly learn to use them for all that God wants me to use them for. But I have the tools.

Active Waiting! I’m waiting to visit - meet Tom, and using the time to get to know him, to learn about him - the meet won’t - can’t - be as frightening as it would have been without this time of waiting, of preparation.

And this waiting needs to also be a time of action, a time of preparing for life with him. Part of that is learning discipline, acting, moving forwards in these other areas of my life.

I can do this. I am equipped. I have been given the go-ahead. I just have to accelerate.
Be first off the green.

Later that night, there were tears. The shift is happening, it’s going on as I type, as I tell my story. To head for the front of the sanctuary, to stand with many others in attendance, and to offer myself once more to the service of my King…

05.06.06 - After the tears.

I just gave up the most important thing in my life. And now… now I have to wait and see if God lets me have it back.

I don’t want to break. Please, God, no breaking. I know I was happy before. And I would be happy again.

Just… please.

Giving up the most important thing in my life… how do people do such things and survive? The pain it caused was behind my tears, but the tears were due also to the joy of knowing that I was following my God.

I’m small, and I feel ineffective, but I know that I was meant to effect change in this world. I have been gifted and empowered to do so, and I will perform my duties as I am called. My vocation has been confirmed so many times in the past, and now it is cemented.

I trust my God, and I fully believe that He will restore to me that which I have given freely and willingly into His service. And it will be better than it was before I relinquished control of my life.

Accessible Royalty... Accessible God.

2006-06-06T08:49:00.000-06:00

I met Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, on Sunday. It was a very brief meeting; he has much to do while he is in Calgary, and this was during a short reception after Matins at Christ Church. His Royal Highness (HRH) had read the first reading during the service, and he unveiled the cornerstone that we'll be putting in when construction finally starts on the renovations and addition we've been planning for ages.

Yesterday's paper had a write-up about Edward and Sophie, the Earl & Countess of Wessex. Edward is the Queen's youngest son, and the couple have only recently chosen to become public and make Royal Visits and begin to "fulfill their responsibilities as members of the royal family".

This columnist got a close-up glimpse of what a difference, and a royal, makes. Last year at this time, I travelled across Saskatchewan and Alberta as the Queen celebrated our two provinces' centennials. Press accreditation was given only after an RCMP screening, every venue was blanketed in undercover security from both the RECMP and Scotland Yard, and the ever-present velvet rope cordoned off the media.

Fast-forward to Sunday: While waiting for the Earl to arrive at Spruce Meadows, there wasn't an official in sight. So I stood by a potted plant at the entrance, within pinching distance of His Royal Highness. Coming in by golf cart, the Earl walked in behind a posse of local dignitaries, one of whom - clearly mistaking me for the hired help or maybe even a trash can - handed me her soiled hanky as she passed by. Even the Earl, who looked my way in mock horror, was not amused.

But for the most part, following the Earl of Wessex around for the day is a pleasant and often amusing experience, thanks to his refreshing take on royal life - not to mention brilliant comic timing, a nod to his earlier theatre experience.

At Christ Church in Elbow Park, after attending service with a standing-room-only crowed of 600, he unveiled a cornerstone to mark the church's upcoming expansion.

"I have to warn you, I am going to make this look as slick as possible," he said to the crowd gathered outside as he pulled off the red cover matador-style. "I must ask you now to sound exstatic, so the rest of the community can understand what they're missing."

"Modern prince charms with humour, wit" - Valerie Fortney
Calgary Herald, Monday, June 5, 2006, page A5

(I'd provide a link to the article itself, but it's subscriber-only access and you shouldn't have to pay.)

She got a couple of things wrong about the church stuff, but it's close enough that I won't nit-pick. I just wanted to draw a comparison.

See, what I was most impressed with about Edward was how relaxed he appeared. He has an amazing ability to put people at ease. He looks like anyone you might meet on the street, and he acts like it, too. He (and Sophie, though I did not have the honour of meeting her; she did not attend services with her husband) is very accessible. They seem to be intent upon being available to the public, rather than maintaining all of the barriers that have existed for so many years.

And I have to draw the comparison to Christ. I just have to.

Just as this royal child is making royalty more accessible to the common man, so too does Christ - the most Royal of all princes - make God more accessible to humanity. In becoming man, God brought us the assurance that He truly does "know what it's like". And because of this, we can come to Him with all of our lives and feel that He hears us and understands.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2.1-11

Tehillah. Inspired.

2006-05-30T08:58:00.000-06:00

I went to Tehillah late last night but got there during the offering, which was a blessing, to be sure!

The night was about Holy Spirit. And the time after the talk was a throwback to the late 1990’s, when Beth & I first started attending.

The following is the bit of writing that flowed through me. It was definitely inspired, because when I finished there was nothing left to say… just singing and praying to be done. The power in the room was palpable. The power of prayer for people I didn’t know - amazing. (By this I do not mean that I went and prayed for people at the front. Rather, I remained in my seat and prayed as the need arose. I distinctly remember “opening”, breaking of fear, and filling.)

Strength & Power descends from on high, and those struck facedown are given ability, knowledge, and faith. They rise, filled with that which is necessary for them to follow their dreams - dreams given them by God - dreams planned for them since long before they were conceived. This renewal is evident in every step they take. They have been equipped to take the steps they are called to take, to fight the battles they will - they must - face as they follow along the path set before them. They are triumphant. Not will be, but are. It is instantaneous, this outpouring of Spirit. Not gradual. There is no “little bit” here - it’s all or nothing, take it or leave it.

Anyone up for some reading?

2006-05-16T15:03:00.000-06:00

E-mail me if you’re interested in reading the beginning of a story I’m thinking to submit to a contest (just got the notice of the contest in my e-mail today). The entry needs to be at least 50 pages long, and I’ve done 42 pages so far. I’m going to find out if it has to be full & complete or if it can just be the first 50 pages of a book, like this is. The prize is a publishing contract to have the book published. Which would be wonderful. The story is about a 5yo autistic girl, told from her point-of-view. So, like I said, e-mail me (or comment here) if you’re interested in reading it, giving input, etc.

Thanks.

Depth.

2006-05-08T15:01:00.000-06:00

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.

All of your waves and breakers have swept over me.”

Psalm 42.7

Deep.

God is deep.

Deep enough to drown in, but the other side of this death is eternal life.

You are also deep.

There is a depth to the human soul that mirrors the depth of God, however imperfectly.

For you were created in His image.

Abandon yourself to the depth that is within you, to the depths that God wants to draw you into.

Your soul is crying out, longing for that connection, that depth, that death… that life.

And God is yearning for you to allow it to overtake you.

For after you drown in Him, you will float in His river, resting peacefully, as He renews your strenth and gives you what you will need in order to carry out the work He has for you.

Dive into the deep end.

He’s waiting for you.

*****

That came during the opening music time at Tehillah tonight. Pastor John said that God is deep (basically the first two lines of the above). And that set me off.

At the end of the service, I had this picture:

I do not know who it is, or anything. But her face came to me as I prayed, and so I drew.

After this one came clear, another drawing arrived in my sketchbook:What I find most interesting is that the pictures really did look like comic book characters when I saw them in my mind.

It wasn’t really clear, at first, but I fought for the clarity so I’d be able to draw them. “Show me. What is it really? I can’t draw it if I can’t see it.” And then it was there.

Amazing.

What I want to do.

2006-05-08T14:59:00.000-06:00

I was talking to my brother in the car on the way home from church today, and I do - I really do - know what I want to do with my life.

I want to write.

I want to be a writer.

I want to write books. And be published.

I have wanted to do this since I was very small. Stories are a part of who I am… the act of telling stories is central to my identity.

And here is where I need to find a way to work within my ADHD to get it to happen. Because this “affliction” - which has gifted me with the ability to craft superb sentences and create vivid pictures using words and only words - also makes it extremely difficult (read: damn near impossible) for me to focus on a project long enough to get it polished and to the point where it does what I need/want it to do, in terms of communication and so on.

I think part of the problem with it is that writing doesn’t have an external structure to it. If I’m going to be a writer, I need to create - and stick to - a schedule/plan. And that isn’t something that comes easily to me.

The chaos that is my mind isn’t really difficult for me to manage, most of the time. It’s the unstructuredness of life that doesn’t work for me. I mean, if my time isn’t specifically laid out, I will accomplish nothing. I do well at work because there’s a rhythm to my days, to my weeks. Not so at home.

I’ll be learning this over the next little while, I think.

I am both excited and apprehensive about this idea. I do hope that I can make it happen. It’s my dream. It makes use of the gifts God has given me. I feel it is my vocation, my Calling. Which probably explains much about why I can never seem to finish any writing projects.

Tehillah. Sight.

2006-04-24T12:24:00.000-06:00

“I want to be small, I want to be just like a child, I want to be quiet in Your arms…”

Amanda Falk, Small

Except… it’s my self who needs to hold that child. Hold the little girl who feels so left out, so separate from everyone and everything around her. Tell her that it’s okay, that there’s a real reason for this feeling, that it’s still possible to have friends, that she is absolutely loveable, and beautiful, that God made her this way for a reason.

You dwell on the edges. You observe and rarely take part. You’ve been left behind, my love… but no more. Leaving you there, in your infancy, that was not protection. I am so so sorry. Come now, join my self and your sister as we grow together. You’re allowed to grow up. How selfish of me to try to keep you a child forever.

He made us to be whole, to be one. Come, catch up. Grow with us. We’ll carry you when your strength fails. Baby girl… reach out your arms and remind us how to dance! how to laugh! how to see God in all things… for we’ve forgotten. We forgot way back when we left you behind.

the little girl, left alone and bewildered in her grade one classroom, wondering why people don’t want to be friends with her;
the teenage corpse, lying in her bed, devoid of emotion; and
the adult woman, who until recently was unable to feel like an actual woman, who has lived her life on the edges of everything, split into these pieces.

Bits and pieces. That’s all I’ve been, for so long. It wasn’t walls I’d built, or masks, or anything else… it was locks on doors, and strangled hearts, and I thought that was safety.

*****

Reach inside,
take hold of her hand;
she is loved…
she is loved.

That little six year old girl
who can’t understand
and can’t figure out
how to make friends.
She got left behind
in an empty classroom
so I could pretend
it all made sense.

Reach inside,
take hold of her hand;
she is loved…
she is loved.

That thirteen year old girl
who is so tired
and doesn’t want to hurt
the way she does.
She got left behind,
a corpse in a bed,
so I could pretend
I felt nothing.

Reach inside,
take hold of her hand;
she is loved…
she is loved.

This adult woman
who is still learning
about friendships
and about living.
God, reach inside;
help her grow up,
bring her to life,
for she is loved.

Reach inside,
take hold of her hand;
she is loved…
she is loved.

He did it because He loves us this much.

2006-04-18T12:17:00.000-06:00

I attended three services this Easter, all of which included Communion. The first two were at Anglican churches, and the third was at First Assembly. All three were very different from one another.

Christ Church: Easter Vigil & the First Eucharist of Easter.

This was the first Eucharist I attended, on Saturday night. The beauty of the liturgy was captured fully within the confines of the Sanctuary that night, and the triumph of the resurrection was demonstrated with the fanfare and redressing of the altar.

To be present at such a beautiful service… I cannot express the awesome power that is contained within the liturgy of my church.

Holy Trinity: Easter Sunday.

The second Eucharist I attended was one in which I was put into service. It was my turn to administer the chalice during the Communion, and there was much joy within me as I offered the cup of wine to all who paused at my station. “The blood of Christ, shed for you,” I said, smiling all the while.

To be able to offer the Sacrament in such a manner… it is joy and perfection.

First Assembly: Tehillah; Easter Monday.

The third was not a Eucharist, for Pentecostals do not deal in Sacraments to my knowledge. I was not a full participant in this Communion, not because it is not a blessed event but because I was engaged in a Communion of another sort, with my God.

And so I offer you the resultant collection of thoughts, borne of that Communion.

*****

“the work Christ did on the cross”

But is that where the work was done?

Salvation is found at the foot of the cross and in the empty tomb!

If the story ended with Good Friday, our God would not be the God we know Him to be!

The empty cross isn’t even the best symbol for this, but the empty tomb… the linens folded within… the stone, rolled away.

Christ died, but then He rose again! We have life because He lives! How glorious, what power, how amazing and awesome is this!

…and here we see why I like to celebrate Easter at the Vigil. To await the resurrection of the Christ in the dark, by the light of pale candlelight.

Sin requires a blood sacrifice to cover the debt, and this is why Christ died on the cross. BUT!!!

He rose again because of the life we have in Him… for our sins are washed away… they are gone, lost in the sea of forgetfulness.

Jesus instituted the Eucharist as a reminder of Him - His life, His death, His resurrection: in short, a reminder of His LOVE.

…our Lord Jesus Christ took bread,
and when he had given thanks to you,
he broke it, and gave it to his disciples,
and said, “Take, eat:
this is my body which is given for you.
Do this for the remembrance of me.”

After supper he took the cup of wine;
and when he had given thanks,
he gave it to them,
and said, “Drink this, all of you:
this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Whenever you drink it,
do this for the remembrance of me.”

The Book of Alternative Services, p. 194
Copyright © 1985 by the General Synod
of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Not in memory of your death but of your LOVE, Lord, for you are love!

Tehillah. Random Thoughts.

2006-04-18T10:16:00.000-06:00

If I am found here, within your grace,

*****

Find me here,
at the base of the falls,
my face turned into the spray.
Wash over me today.

*****

Grace
borne of mercy
borne of love
Sacrifice
Peace
Tragic Beauty
Faith

*****

Restoration.
Eternal
Peace.
Equality.
New life.
Transformation.
Acceptance.
Nature.
Community.
Effecting change.

*****

The beauty of God’s forgiveness
love
reconciliation
peace
restoration
joy

*****

Eucharistic beauty & solemnity

The love of Christ laid out upon the cross

On the Co-Opting of Holy Days.

2006-04-16T12:15:00.000-06:00

On ISCA, we are engaged in a debate regarding the nature of holidays like Easter and Christmas. I copy here a few of the posts, made by myself and others, that I think demonstrate the issues best. (Note that my username is Jubilee.)

Apr 14, 2006 16:22 from DaAfrican
Well, it’s called “Good” Friday because it was “good” that Jesus died for the sins of mankind. Without His death, man would not be redeemed and would only have access to God through keeping the Old Testament Law (which the Hebrews were consistently unable to do).

Despite this reality, all of these so-called “holy days” are problematic for me because 1.) they have pagan connections and 2.) they do not originate with Christ’s teachings or the teachings of His apostles.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144929

Apr 14, 2006 16:35 from DesCartes
Because anything worth doing was done or taught by Jesus and the apostles. If they didn’t do it, it’s not worth doing.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144930

Apr 14, 2006 16:36 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

No, not saying that. But, most (maybe all) things done in the name of Christianity should have some basis in Jesus’ teachings. I think Jesus’ endorsement of Easter & Christmas wouldn’t hurt.

Moreover, when I see some of the practices that occur on these days, I am hard pressed to see the “Christianness” of these so-called holy days.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144931

Apr 14, 2006 17:20 from Mortika
Well, start with “Do This in Memory of Me.”

The Passion was the central event of Jesus’ life, and its commemoration (and, in the case of the resurraction, celebration) is the central event of the Church’s Liturgy.

I guess we’re looking at things from entirely different perspectives. I can’t see anything *but* Christianity in the Triidium.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144932

Apr 14, 2006 17:19 from Vanity
Good Friday has “Pagan Connections”??!!! Mercy, what will they think of next.
Here’s the “pagan connection”: Good Friday is supposed to coincide with Pesach, the holiday of Passover in Jewish tradition.
Pesach is *the* oldest of the Jewish holidays, according to the Torah (Exodus 12) ordained by God, and its date firmly specified; it antedates even the giving of the Law at Sinai.
It is specified to be celebrated in the first month of the Jewish year, that is, the first lunation of the season of spring.

And, as everyone knows, the pagans invented the seasons! Yes, using a calendar is un-Christian! Flee from the diabolical season of spring!
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144933

Apr 14, 2006 22:19 from DaAfrican
C’mon, you know I’m not talking about studying the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. I’m talking about what *most* people think about in reference to Easter.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144939

Apr 14, 2006 22:21 from DaAfrican
You all seem to be very devout and all. However, Easter, as far as I can tell is more about chocolate, baskets, new suits, and the like than it is about the remembrance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

From my understanding, the bunnies, the eggs, the bright new clothes, and the Spring-time celebrations have pagan origins, not Christian ones.

The remembrance of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection is something that I celebrate throughout the year. Therefore, the only *special* things I seem to see around this time are *Passion plays* (some of which are good), easter bunnies, easter egg hunts, easter baskets, and some more crass consumerism that is MORE linked with pagan rituals than Christian celebrations. In fact, I don’t remember any Easter celebration in the Scripture. I do remember an apostle being killed around that time.

I want to make it clear that I am NOT referring to Jewish festivals like Passover and such. Of course Passover is related to Christ’s death, but the bunnies, chocolates, painted eggs, new suits and other such things are not.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144940

Apr 14, 2006 23:19 from DesCartes
That’s because you don’t celebrate holy days. If you celebrated holy days, then Easter is the most holy of holy days. If you don’t, it’s just another day, and all you get are the chocolate trappings of it.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144941

Apr 14, 2006 23:32 from Consumer
It is possible to celebrate Easter (or Christmas, for that matter) in both a holy and cultural way. Goto church in the morning, come home and partake in celebrations with the family.
If a family member’s birthday happened to fall on Easter, would you refuse to celebrate it with a party because it is a holy day?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144942

Apr 14, 2006 23:33 from DaAfrican
Is *Easter* a holy day, or is the Christ’s resurrection a holy day?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144943

Apr 14, 2006 23:34 from DaAfrican
Consumer>

Of course a birthday and Easter coinciding would not pose a problem. However, it seems to me that many people use Christ and Christianity as a reason for holidays that don’t at all seem to have originated with Christ or Christianity.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144945

Apr 14, 2006 23:36 from DesCartes
Why can’t they both be holy? Easter, because it marks Christ’s resurrection. The day of Christ’s resurrection because Christ rose on that day. Every Sunday, because we celebrate the Resurrection during worship.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144946

Apr 14, 2006 23:36 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

They can, but are they the SAME holy day?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144947

Apr 14, 2006 23:37 from DesCartes
Is that a problem with the holidays, or a problem with the people who celebrate them in a secular manner, not remembering the point of the holidays?

Some people take the Bible too literally, too, or reverence it almost to the point of idolotry. Is that a problem with the Bible, or with the people who don’t understand its proper place?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144948

Apr 14, 2006 23:37 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

How does *Easter* mark Christ’s resurrection? I mean, of course there are religious traditions that say this, but how can it mark much of anything when it changes every year.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144949

Apr 14, 2006 23:40 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

It is a problem of both the holidays (some) AND the people who celebrate them. For instance, take Memorial Day. This day was (I believe) set aside by the federal government to commemmorate US soldiers who had fallen in wartime.

For someone to come along and make that the holiday to commemmorate peace activists seems counter to the origin of the holiday.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144950

Apr 14, 2006 23:50 from Vanity
You know, pagans didn’t really have chocolate bunnies, easter eggs, bonnets and flower baskets. All these things were invented by Christians. I know there’s a resistance to admitting that Christianity can develop novelties from within itself, but it’s still true. “Pagan” in this context just becomes a symbol whose real meaning is “not my kind of Christian”.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144951

Apr 15, 2006 00:00 from DesCartes
Easter, though, seems the worst example of this. It seems to me that the best time to celebrate Easter would be when it happened–right after the Passover. It’s not like Christmas, where a date was pulled out of the blue (or chosen to coincide with a pagan celebration at the same time). Passover occurs at a certain date, based on the lunar calendar. And then so that it coincides with Sunday (the day of the week of the Resurrection), Holy Thursday is set for Thursday, Good Friday is set for Friday, and Easter for that Sunday. Sure, the date for Holy Thursday doesn’t always correspond exactly to the modern observance of Passover, but it’s not too far off.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144954

Apr 15, 2006 00:00 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

And, the range of dates available for Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and basically every holiday are far less than that of Easter.

Vanity>

Christians start a lot of things. I’m sure you can find some “Christians” who burn crosses, others who protest at soldiers’ funerals, and still others who wish that someone would assassinate the leader of another country.

The fact that the people who make Easter bunnies are Christian does not offer any light on this discussion in my view, unless these self-same Christians are arguing that Easter bunnies fulfill some doctrine of Christianity that fits with this holiday. And maybe they can. I just haven’t heard what that is yet.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144955

Apr 15, 2006 00:08 from DaAfrican
DesCartes>

Why does it deviate from Passover some years? What is the spiritual significance of Easter bunnies? Chocolate eggs? Brand new suits? Bright colors?

Are their Christian philosophical origins for these practices or are they related to pagan Spring festivals?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144956

Apr 15, 2006 00:30 from Lemony Snicket
>Why does Easter deviate from Passover some years?

The usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. The full moon involved is not the astronomical Full Moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon.

The ecclesiastical rules are:

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox; this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21.
resulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/easter.html

________________________________________

According to the eighth-century theologian the Venerable Bede (who came up with the dating system of AD and BC), Easter is named for Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. She is associated with the egg and with the hare, both symbols of procreation that have been enduringly incorporated by the church in the form of Easter eggs and the Easter bunny who brings them.

______________________________________

[Bible And Christianity> msg #144957

Apr 15, 2006 00:36 from Jubilee
Just a partial point that may be a bit off on its facts, but I was under the impression that part of the whole egg thing with Easter was that people gave up eating eggs for Lent, and so then Easter Sunday was the first day they ate them again. Why wouldn’t you decorate them?

Chocolate anything is getting off the topic. I mean, come on, it’s not just chocolate bunnies anymore. You can get chocolate Homer Simpson or Dora the Explorer for Easter now. How is that Easter-y?

Personally, I just like chocolate and I’ll take any excuse I can get to eat it.

But again, I would expect that the chocolate itself became part of Easter celebrations because people would give up eating such things during Lent, so Easter Sunday is the first day they can eat it.

If you really want us to, I’m sure we can turn everything that you’re complaining about into some kind of religious sign or symbol. For example, new dresses and suits? A physical sign of the new life we have through Christ’s resurrection. Eggs? Besides the Lent thing, they are a good metaphor for the Trinity as well as the Tomb. Rabbits? Well, that one I can’t think of right now but I’m sure someone else can come up with something.

Celebrating things like Easter and Christmas is not *wrong*. It is not a *sin* to participate in cultural events the way most Christians do, just as it’s not a *sin* to refuse to participate. Just recognise that Christianity is, by its very nature, influenced by the culture surrounding it. Faith *must* be influenced by culture - there’s no way to avoid that.

(Can you tell I’ve read a couple of chapters of my new book?)
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144958

Apr 15, 2006 15:02 from DaAfrican
Jubilee>

I don’t recall stating that celebrating ANY holiday was a sin. I merely argued that to simply change holidays with non-Christian origins into Christian holy days seems to leave those holidays, in my mind, as non-Christian.

My choice to celebrate or not to celebrate these holidays, which my research has tended to show a stronger pagan connection than what has been presented by posters here, is not a choice of sinning or not sinning.

Finally, it is not *chocolate* that is the issue. It is my understanding that bunnies, eggs, new suits, flowers are all symbols of Spring and the vernal equinox.

Some pagans who I know say they honor the “rebirth” of the earth every Spring by celebrating the new animal life (symbolized by bunnies and eggs), new plant life (symbolized by flowers, bright colors) and other symbols of Spring.

I thought that what happened was that the Catholic Church in its attempt to convert pagans, coopted their Spring festivals into a celebration of the resurrection, not of the earth and its fauna and flora, but of Jesus Christ.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144960

Apr 15, 2006 15:23 from Vanity
Just as I said — the pagans invented spring! Any recognition of the passing of the seasons is clear proof of paganism.
By that argument, the Jews who had celebrations marking the seasons, harvest and so on (like Sh’vuoth — equivalent to Christian Pentecost) were pagans too, and Christianity is founded on paganism. So why shouldn’t Christianity, being a pagan-based religion, celebrate these pagan holidays in a pagan manner? We can’t all be Gnostics, you know — that’s reserved for the spiritual elite.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144961

Apr 15, 2006 15:29 from DaAfrican
Vanity>

No one’s arguing that the pagans invented Spring. Nor that they invented Spring festivals. Just that they invented Easter.

You have the 4th of July and you have Juneteenth. Both are Independence Day celebrations. But they have two different origins and thus occur on two different dates and have different symbols and rituals that are connected to them.

You have Thanksgiving and you have Kwanzaa. Both are harvest celebrations. However, the origins are different, the culture is different, the dates and symbols connected to them are different.

And then you have Easter.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144963

Apr 15, 2006 15:34 from AndyB
I believe that the argument is that it was a “redemption” of the pagan festivals by taking the similar time (Christmas at the winter solstice etc) and celebrating something to do with Christianity at that time.

Easter and Pentecost are tied to the Jewish Passover and Feast of Weeks (early harvest) due to their origins, although due to the different methods of calculating Easter, the western Easter rarely coincides with the Jewish Passover. That said, I believe that the Eastern date for Easter often does.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144964

Apr 15, 2006 15:45 from Vanity
The reverse is true: the date calculated for Easter by Gregorian calendar often coincides with Passover, whereas the Julian calendar date, used in the Eastern Orthodox churches, never or almost never does. This has in fact been used as an argument on the Orthodox side for their method of calculation: they claim that Easter should *never* coincide with Passover. That would be too Jewish, I guess. In fact, it’s not a feature of the Orthodox calculation system present from the beginning, but just an accidental result of the length of the year in the Julian calendar being significantly longer than the actual length of the solar year.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144965

Apr 15, 2006 16:13 from DaAfrican
AndyB>

Yeah. I think that practice of “redeeming” pagan festivals irks me. I see it as a tool of conversion. Something you do to stop the “nasty pagans” from practicing their “old bad religion.”

It doesn’t strike me as something that is meant for the edification of the believers.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144966

Apr 15, 2006 16:37 from Jubilee
I guess I’m just too post-modern for you, DaAfrican.

I see no problem with co-opting cultural norms to become a part of Christian culture. It’s generally the only way to really understand where other people are coming from. And the only way for others to understand *us*.

Regardless, the fact remains that Easter, in and of itself, is *not* a co-opted pagan celebration, though some of the little things we include in our celebration thereof may have their origins in pagan traditions.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144967

Apr 15, 2006 17:04 from AndyB
Vanity> thanks very much. I believe the solar year is around 365.23 days or something, compared to the Julian 365.25 days, which approximates to 3 years in every 400, being the century years which are not leap years?

I think that Easter does borrow a little in symbolism; I think for example that egg rolling may have been adapted from a pagan custom to make people think of the stone rolling away from the door of the tomb.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144968

Apr 15, 2006 17:10 from Giraffe
DaAfrican: Is anyone requiring you to include bunnies and eggs in your Easter observance? I’m not sure what your complaint is.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144969

Apr 15, 2006 17:09 from AndyB
Apologies for the double - Gregorian calendar is based on a year of 365.2425 days, which does approximate to the solar year of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.51 seconds or 365.2422 days.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144970

Apr 15, 2006 17:21 from Vanity
The difference between the Julian year and the solar year amounted to 1 day every 128 years. The Julian calendar has drifted off by 15 days since Jesus’ time; that is, the nominal spring equinox in the Julian calendar is more than 2 weeks later than the actual spring equinox. As a result, Easter is usually going to be celebrated in the 2nd lunation after that, i.e. in the Jewish month of Iyyar, not in the month of Nisan.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144971

Apr 15, 2006 17:35 from Faunus
Everybody, let’s all make a pact that none of us will go meet DaAfrican in real life and force him at gunpoint to make easter egs and give his children chocolate bunnies. Maybe that will solve his problem.

[Bible And Christianity> msg #144972

Apr 15, 2006 17:37 from Gwynn
OK. I make a pact that if I ever meet Da African in real life, I’ll force him at gunpoint to give his children chocolate and make them cute little dyed eggs. Damn, wait, I’ve gotten something wrong, haven’t I? See, this is probably why it’s a bad idea for me to make pacts and stuff.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144973

Apr 15, 2006 20:13 from Consumer
“I see no problem with co-opting cultural norms to become a part of Christian culture. ”

Its a slipery slope! I blame the English translations of scripture for corrupting Christianity. First language adaptations then chocalate bunnies. what next?!?!!!1111oneone
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144975

Apr 16, 2006 07:42 from DaAfrican
Jubilee>

Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t. However, I believe that a lot of this cooptation of pagan festivals from Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day to Easter, Halloween & Christmas are driven not so much by religious institutions but by capitalist corporations who stand to make money from the sale of cards, candy, gifts and other goods.

The reason why many Christians celebrate some of these formerly pagan holy days and NOT celebrate other ones is not solely by their own choice, but by the choices made for them by corporations who care nothing about the pagan OR Christian origin of these holy days. Their purpose is outside the purview of religion or spiritual meaning and is really about profit.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144984

Apr 16, 2006 08:31 from Jubilee
DaAfrican>

Perhaps *now* that is true, but it looks to me like you have suddenly changed your stance on the issue.

You’ve gone from saying that these holidays oughtn’t to be celebrated because they were originally pagan in nature, to saying that these holidays oughtn’t to be celebrated because they’re too capitalistic in nature.

Those are two very different positions, and it would be helpful - to me, at least - if you might possibly state which you are actually supporting. If it’s both, that’s fine, but don’t muddy the conversation by changing tacks in the middle of things.

As for capitalism, I agree. These holidays have all become far too consumer-driven. The same can be said for Christianity, period.

What, the fact that I got my bookmark at a Christian bookstore and it has a Bible verse on it makes it better than a bookmark I got at Chapters? I don’t think so. All a bookmark does is hold your place in the book you’re reading.

We market everything, from the churches to the services to the faith itself. People are turned off by that - at least, that’s what I’ve seen amongst my own friends. I refused to purchase anything that had “WWJD” stamped on it for as long as the hype was really big. Not so much because I don’t like “being a part of something” as because I don’t need a freaking *bracelet* to remind me to do my best to emulate Christ in my everyday life.

This is the damage we must deal with in the church today. It’s a result of existing in a consumer-driven, capitalistic society.

To bring this back to Christmas and Easter and the like…

Yes, they have been co-opted by our capitalistic society. First some traditions were co-opted from pagans by Christians. Then the holidays themselves were co-opted from Christians by capitalists. I’m sure the people who first did that were Christians themselves.

But I fail to see how this impacts our ability to observe the glory and holiness of these days/events. As I posted last night, my favourite Easter service is the Vigil on Holy Saturday. Of all the holy days of the Christian year, Holy Saturday and Pentecost are the two that I love most. And neither of *them* have been co-opted by capitalists.

Well, not yet, anyway.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144985

Apr 16, 2006 08:46 from Mackerel

“However, I believe that a lot of this cooptation of pagan festivals from Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day to Easter, Halloween & Christmas are driven not so much by religious institutions but by capitalist corporations who stand to make money from the sale of cards, candy, gifts and other goods.”

Isn’t this impossible historically? Capitalism is just a few hundred years old. The holidays were established centuries before that. It’s a ridiculous theory.

[Bible And Christianity> msg #144986

Apr 16, 2006 09:07 from DaAfrican
Jubilee>

My original position still stands. I still think that the practice of changing clearly pagan celebrations into nominal Christian *holy days* with the pagan symbols intact is troublesome.

However, I also believe it is time for Christian celebraters to acknowledge that much of their celebration of these formerly pagan holidays has a lot to do with the success of capitalist marketing and less to do with how successful the Catholics were at “redeeming” the pagan holidays.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144987

Apr 16, 2006 08:45 from Vanity
Valentine’s day is not a “pagan festival”, but the feast of the martyr Saint Valentine, commemorating the day he was born again through blood into the Kingdom of Heaven.
St. Patrick’s day is also not a “pagan festival”, but commemorates the death of Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, on March 17, 493. These dates are, accurate or not, commemorations of historical events. They are not “formerly pagan holy days”.
Halloween is a different case, both because the approximate date does have some calendarical significance (being about halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice), and because the Feast of All Saints is itself of late date (it was first celebrated on May 13, the anniversary of the rededication of the Pantheon in Rome as the Church of the Virgin and All the Saints, in 609; the date was only changed to November 1 in 835) and the belief in the day before (and sometimes after) All Saints as a day when wicked spirits roamed the earth and illicit magic was particularly effective is of even later origin.
This, however, belongs more to the realm of folk religion than paganism in particular; many of the claims, made by both fundamentalist Christians and neo-pagans about the pagan connections of Hallowe’en are either exaggerated or false.
Christmas is the most complicated instance, because even though the date was assigned relatively early, it had to compete with a large number of variant dates for the Nativity of Jesus. Much has been made about the supposed coincidence of the date of Dec. 25 with that of other pagan holidays. The relative priority of these relative to the Christian holiday is unclear, and if the Christian choice of Dec. 25 was influenced by paganism, it is more likely to have been by way of competition than by way of imitation. It is also possible that the date of the Nativity was calculated from the date of the Annunciation (March 25) rather than vice versa, in which case it really has nothing to do with the pagan holidays directly at all. The most probable explanation, to my mind, is that Dec. 25 was chosen as a well-known and easily memorable date, as recognizable to the Romans as July 4 to Americans; and that several religions, including the Christians, made use of it for that reason.
It seems to me to be sloppy scholarship to equate *seasonally significant days* with “pagan holidays”. Despite what I may have said earlier , pagans did not *really* invent the seasons, and changes in season and fixed points in the solar year are noted by *all* cultures that have the knowledge to calculate them, and sometimes they are used as convenient reference points for the assignment of religious holidays. There is nothing intrinsically “pagan” about this; it is simply a convenience.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144988

Apr 16, 2006 09:13 from DaAfrican
Mackerel>

Only if you’re short-sighted. The strength of holidays and celebrations sometimes expands, but more often these holidays begin to diminish in reverence.

Therefore, it is highly probable that these holidays (especially Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day) would be relatively unnoticed in MODERN times if not for the engine of capitalism that keeps them moving.

Moreover, the fact that Christmas is the most popular holiday in the world is not about the triumph of Jesus Christ over Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, and Oludamare. It is about the triumph of Western capitalism.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144989

Apr 16, 2006 09:14 from Peccavimus
Except that the symbols of Easter aren’t really all that pagan. The egg is used because it was one of a number of foods forbidden during lent, and therefore a treat (much in the same way we use chocolate now). The bunny can be traced back to 16th Century Germany, hardly a pagan hotbed. [Yes, I know that to say 16th Century Germany is to make an anachronism, but you know what I mean]. The combination of bunny and egg you see around this time of year can be traced back to the eldrich paganism of the 19th Century. About the only thing I can find that’s explicitly pagan about this particular festival is that it falls in the spring, and therefore is a spring festival, and of course, as Faunus pointed out, any celebration or acknowledgement of the turning of the seasons is ipso facto pagan.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144990

Apr 16, 2006 09:19 from DaAfrican
Vanity>

I will never be as precise as you might like me to be. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day may not be formerly “pagan holidays.” However, pagan symbolism is inextricably connected to both days. From Cupid to leprechauns, it seems clear that these holidays were used to convert the non-Christians (who probably believed in Cupid and leprechauns and pther pagan stuff) into Christians.

Of course, their former beliefs have crept in and I would argue, have taken over the popular form of the celebrations.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144991

Apr 16, 2006 09:14 from Jubilee
DaAfrican>

And I still say that adding this new point (”I also believe it is time for Christian celebraters to acknowledge that much of their celebration of these formerly pagan holidays has a lot to do with the success of capitalist marketing and less to do with how successful the Catholics were at “redeeming” the pagan holidays.”) simply muddies the waters.

Are you upset that Christians co-opted the paganistic trappings for their own use, or are you upset that it’s become so commercialised?

They are two decidedly different issues, and yes, you can be upset by both, but you can’t logically use one to argue the other because they are separate from each other.

*My* celebration of Easter may take place mainly on Easter Sunday, but I would rather celebrate it at the Vigil on Holy Saturday (and I may switch to that observance entirely at some point in the future). And, yes, I received an Easter parcel from my parents this week that contains plenty of chocolate for myself and my brother. And, yes, my brother and I are planning to have a happy time of family togetherness for dinner tonight, complete with ham and scalloped potatoes and veggies and hot cross buns for dessert. And, yes, I grew up having Easter candy hunts in our living room in the afternoon of Easter Sunday.

I don’t think any of that is *wrong*.

I also do not agree that the *when* and the extraneous *how* (trappings) of Easter are either the sole result of capitalism *or* the co-opting of pagan holidays. But we knew that already.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144992

Apr 16, 2006 09:24 from DaAfrican
Peccavimus>

I have read a number of sources that disagree with your origin of the bunny and egg. This is the first I have heard of these being formed by Christian theology.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144993

Apr 16, 2006 09:27 from Peccavimus
DaAfrican> Yeah, a lot of people like to make shit up.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144994

Apr 16, 2006 09:26 from DaAfrican
Jubilee>

Don’t mean to muddy the waters but whether you see them as 2 different problems or (as I do) part of one single problem, my position remains. Yes, I would have a problem with the KKK attempting to co-opt MLK Day into a holiday that was more suitable for their own beliefs. And I would also have a problem with my church trying to co-opt the Nation of Islam’s Saviour’s Day that celebrates their savior Wallace Fard Muhammad (Feb. 25) into a Christian holiday that celebates the REAL Saviour - Jesus Christ.

I think most Christians would understand why I would have a problem with that. But, when I say the EXACT same thing about Easter, people say, “c’mon, you’re being silly.”
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144995

Apr 16, 2006 09:35 from Peccavimus
You’re not saying the exact same thing about Easter. You’re saying “I hallucinate that bunnies are a pagan symbol, there’s a bunny in Easter, ergo Easter is pagan and capitalistic and I wont’ celebrate it.” Which is fine, celebrate or not as you like, but recognize that anyone who cares to look it up will find it all a bit odd.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144996

Apr 16, 2006 09:37 from Jubilee
Thanks, Pecc! You are making a lot of sense this morning - which is a miracle, given how tired I really ought to be…

DaAfrican>

Okay, let’s just move the feat for St Matthias the Apostle over one day, from February 24 to February 25, and have at it.

Is your problem more with the co-opting of things in various directions or with the RCC having started the whole co-opting trend?

You would probably have a problem with the song “Tourniquet” being sung as a worship song at a youth service, too. I don’t. That song is decidedly worshipful. As are a number of Evanescence songs.

But then, the lines are (and should be) blurred between culture and faith. “Called to be in the world but not of it” doesn’t mean we live in this world and refuse to participate in things that “aren’t Christian”. It means we participate fully in the culture we find ourselves in, striving to bring Christ into every moment we can.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144997

Apr 16, 2006 09:43 from Vanity
“From Cupid to leprechauns, it seems clear that these holidays were used to convert the non-Christians (who probably believed in Cupid and leprechauns and pther pagan stuff) into Christians.”

It may be “clear”, but it’s not *true*. The cupid-symbol was not in any way connected to Valentine’s Day until *after* the day was associated with young would-be lovers, in the late Middle Ages, when there weren’t any pagans around; the association was made because cupids were a well-known artistic symbol of erotic love. Now, you could write quite a thick book about the artistic survival of pagan themes and images, and their enthusiastic acceptance and re-emergence in late Renaissance art, but at the end of the day what is true now is what was true then: these are conventional artistic symbols, drained of any overt religious meaning, and in the highly religious, Christian society of renaissance and post-renaissance Europe, they were only acceptable as symbols *because* there was no perceived danger of people taking them as religious rather than allegorical figures.
As for the leprechauns, they are only one of several random figures of “Irishness” that are used to symbolize St. Patrick’s Day in its American incarnation as a day for celebrating Irish-American ethnic pride. I’m sure that very few of the green-beer-drinking, plastic-shamrock-wearing one-half-to-one-sixteenth Irish-Americans who commemorate the day think it has anything to do with paganism at all. Nor do most of them believe in leprechauns — at least not before the fifth pint!
[Bible And Christianity> msg #144998

Apr 16, 2006 15:00 from King Of Kale
DaAfrican> I’m curious, are you married? If so, did you engage in such Pagan practices as exchanging wedding rings (Egyptian & Roman), serving each other cake (Norse & Roman), throwing rice (Assyrian & Egyptian), having bridesmaids, groomsmen, and ushers (Roman), a best man (Germanic Goth), asking the bride’s father for her hand in marriage (Roman), etc.

It’s a little difficult to have anything Christian that doesn’t have at least some ancient Pagan roots. Sometimes, when something is the cultural norm, it gets absorbed into the practices of subcultures in the area. Almost everybody who is married wears a wedding ring on their “ring finger” in the U.S., regardless of religion. Yet some will tell you that it’s on that particular finger for a religious reason (there are both Christian and Pagan explanations for this, it’s difficult to tell which came first). Most people, however, just wear it there because that’s what everybody else does. *shrugs* Sometimes that’s why religions adopt certain practices. Why did Catholic Irish start using the term Lughnasadh to refer to the harvest season, when it contains a Pagan deity reference? It could have been that they were trying to trick Pagans into converting or such, but more likely, that’s simply what everyone called that time of year.

I think it’s sometimes difficult to judge historic motives, origins, etc. The modern understanding and use is probably a better guideline.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145002

Apr 16, 2006 16:37 from Tomte
Wow, some really cool scroll here.

I have one question that arises from it for me:

Can something be popular and pure at the same time?

It seems like much of the criticism of Christmas, Easter, and other popular holidays arises from the popularity of them among the general culture, not just Christians.

Once something spills over out of the Christian subculture into the mainstream, then Christianity can no longer control the meanings assigned, and you get capitialism, consumerism, secularism, and all kinds of “isms” putting their stamp on the holiday.

I’ll close with a passage out of Isaiah, which I found particularly edifying in church this morning, as it validated celebration, which took place at our house after the service.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145003

Apr 16, 2006 17:07 from Jubilee
“Can something be popular and pure at the same time?”

I think that depends on your definition of the word “pure”.

*I* would say yes, but I think I’ve already made it fairly clear that I’m not your garden-variety evangelical (if I can be called one, even).

Oy… there’s a lot of stuff all flying through my head at once right now. Trying to catch a thought is tricky.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145004

Apr 16, 2006 21:15 from Woolfie
That’s some pretty hindsight looking thinking there, DaAfrican. Valentine’s day occurs in mid-Feb, and thus must be based on the pagan beliefs. Instead of Valentine’s day being based on the oral tradition of the death of St. Valentine, and the pagan stuff associated with the time is why the romance moved in.

Instead, I’m willing to bet that the “pagan’s” co-opted Valentine’s rather than the Christian’s co-opting the pagan holidays. Sometimes that happens too. Take Christmas for example. Lots of the “christmas” traditions have little to do with the religious celebration of Christ’s birth. Yet those traditions do little to take away the importance of the holiday to many devout christians.

Or what about St. Patricks. That old roman was pretty good at finding things in the local culture to bridge the culture gap to Christianity. Such as using the three leaf clover to represent the trinity, giving us a symbol insepratable from the green isle. Christian co-opting pagan beliefs or a savy preacher understanding the audience?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145008

Apr 16, 2006 21:25 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>

A talented preacher that understood his audience.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145010

Apr 16, 2006 21:26 from Woolfie
Then why the problem with the “trappings” of St. Patricks Day? Celebrate the man who converted the druids.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145011

Apr 16, 2006 21:27 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>

St. Patty’s doesn’t seem to be like Valentine’s, Easter, Halloween & Christmas.
It seems to be a legit religious holiday not based on pagan origins.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145012

Apr 16, 2006 21:30 from Woolfie
And yet, St. Valentine is a real person. Christ did die and was resurected. The day after All Hallow’s Eve really is All Hallow’s Day and Christ was born of a human mother.

Now, are the “trappings” surrounding those days so different than the “trappings” surrounding St. Patrick’s Day? They all have some pagan connections somewhere along the way, yet they each have important connections to Christian Theology.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145013

Apr 16, 2006 21:33 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>Sounds good, but despite the fact that I don’t deify or quasi-deify saints, I also don’t see a need to replace pagan celebrations with nominally Christian holy days.

However, I don’t view these celebrations as sins, they are just irksome and probably keep alive more pagan symbols than they eliminate.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145015

Apr 16, 2006 21:37 from Woolfie
Wait. Just a little while ago you were upset at the crash commercialism that negates the “holiness” of the holidays.

Are pagan symbols more powerful than christian ones?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145016

Apr 16, 2006 21:38 from DaAfrican
Faunus>

According to my wikipedia, that’s exactly the legend/story behind Gelasius’ choice for Valentine’s Day.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145017

Apr 16, 2006 21:35 from Faunus
“St. Patty’s doesn’t seem to be like Valentine’s, Easter, Halloween &
Christmas. It seems to be a legit religious holiday not based on pagan origins.”

Ironically, St. Patty’s day is not really considered a religious holiday much anymore, but a time to celebrate kitsch Irishness and drink green beer.

Neither is Halloween.

When’s the last time you heard someone say “I can’t wait for St. Patrick’s Day, when I can pray my rosary and read the Saint’s Life!” or “I can’t wait for Halloween, where I will prepare to venerate all the saints on Hallowmas!”

Easter is of course the premier Christian holy day, with Christmas a close second.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145018

Apr 16, 2006 21:39 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>

Yes.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145019

Apr 16, 2006 21:41 from Woolfie
Ah! Now I begin to understand.

DaAfrican, can I ask what “brand” of Christianity you proscribe too?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145020

Apr 16, 2006 21:40 from Faunus
Not that Wikipedia is necessarily right, but it marks the “Pope Gelasius I vs the Lupercalia” story as a *legend* (not a historical fact) — a recent legend, because only in relatively recent historical times (14th century AD, while Gelasius was 5th century AD) has there been any connection between St. Valentine’s Day and love/romance.

In other words, it’s a fiction.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145021

Apr 16, 2006 21:40 from DaAfrican
Faunus>

I am sure that a significant number of people DO still recognize St. Patrick’s Day as a religious holiday. And, since that is how it originated, they are the legitimate celebraters.

I think you’re right about Halloween, though. However, too many fundamentalists have demonized Halloween as if it the most unholy of all days. This when far more madness occurs at Christmastime than any other holiday.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145022

Apr 16, 2006 21:44 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>

I am just a Christian, no demonination.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145023

Apr 16, 2006 21:48 from Woolfie
Let me ask another question then, what denomination (and I did notice how you spelled it) does the church you attend regularly claim to be a part of?
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145025

Apr 16, 2006 21:47 from Faunus
Just out of curiosity, DaA, what does this test think you are?

http://selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=christiandenom

It says I’m Episcopal, ELCA, Eastern Orthodox, or LCMS, followed by Wesleyan or Papist. It says I’m farthest from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

[Bible And Christianity> msg #145026

Apr 16, 2006 21:49 from DaAfrican
We are nondenominational. Probably sharing a profound connection to Black Baptist churches, with a little bit in common with groups as widely disparate as the RCC, the WCG and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We have views which would be clearly fundamentalist, and other views that would be considered heretical by the fundies and the mainlines.

Basically, we are a church attempting to follow the Word of God.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145027

Apr 16, 2006 21:56 from Faunus
“views that would be considered heretical by the fundies and the mainlines.”

Oooh,share the heretical ones! Agreement is boring.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145029

Apr 16, 2006 21:58 from DaAfrican
Woolfie>

I’m a Mennonite.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145030

Apr 16, 2006 22:08 from DaAfrican
Faunus>

I’m farthest from the Unitarian Universalist
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145033

Apr 16, 2006 23:22 from Jubilee
Well, I did the test and apparently I’m a member of the wrong church!

I got Seventh-Day Adventist first, then Evangelical Lutheran Church, then Methodist/Wesleyan Church, and *then* Episcopal/Anglican.

I would go with the non-first choice.

I’m farthest from Unitarian Universalism, though. Go me!
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145034

Apr 16, 2006 23:30 from Band Girl
Me too, Jubilee. I got Episcopal/Anglican first, *then* Evangelical Lutheran, then Missouri Synod (wha?), then Methodist/Wesleyan, then Eastern Orthodox (hmm!). Furthest from JW.
[Bible And Christianity> msg #145035

It appears that our discussion has moved into defining ourselves as Christians. So I will stop quoting the forum now. I hope you got a good laugh out of some of this stuff!

Disconnect. Duality.

2006-04-16T12:14:00.000-06:00

I have been struggling lately with the disconnect between what I believe and what my church teaches. My parents raised my brothers and I to be “thinking people” - people who are not afraid to wonder, to doubt, to research, to reach our own conclusions about things that affect us, whether they be matters of faith, career choice, or the people we choose to love. And they did this as staunch conservatives.

I have a different set of beliefs from those my parents espouse. Where it matters, they are the same, but on the outskirts… on the edges, where we have the expression of faith, the expression of belief, the expression of thought and doubt… here we differ. And I continue to question, to doubt, to refuse to simply accept “truth” as it is handed to me. I explore ideas from all angles, I read what I can from other points of view. I do not stick to the known… rather, I enjoy venturing into the vast unknown.

And this is important, this ability to question and explore, for all people - not just in matters of faith, but in matters of education, disability rights, and acceptance.

When I was in first year University, I lived in residence, and my RA signed me up for a club (I couldn’t attend the fair). I went to one meeting and didn’t return. The club was supposedly about diversity, which I was definitely interested in. But the diversity this club was promoting was limited to acceptance of homosexuality. And aside from being unable to form a personal opinion on that particular topic at the time, I was not impressed with a “diversity club” that was not truly diverse.

The system needs to be changed. Diversity - true diversity - needs to be embraced and accepted. A closed community quickly becomes stagnant and eventually dies, all the while wondering why it’s not gaining any new members.

Culture affects us, but we affect culture.

We need to effect change in this culture.

Living a Transparent Life.

2006-04-16T12:13:00.000-06:00

Have you ever sat and watched a fire?

I mean really looked at it, seen it.

I confess to being something of a pyromaniac. I once wasted a couple of books of matches one afternoon, by laying matches around the inside of an ashtray and then lighting one match and watching the flame burn through the pattern I’d set up. There was a small flare (explosion) when the fire reached the business end of a match, and that was really why I did it. I like explosions - action movies are nothing without at least one fiery explosion.

I find fire hypnotising. Ancient peoples spoke of fire as a living thing, and I am not surprised. Like living things, fire requires oxygen in order to survive. It also requires fuel. It dances, it moves. It grows. It gives heat and light.

For this reason, many churches have a perpetual flame in their sanctuary. This flame is a sign of the presence of God.

Jesus spoke to the people around Him, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

John 8.12, NRSV

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lapstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to tyour Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5.13-16, NRSV

Jesus is the light of the world.

This means that He shines. He is alive, and He shows us where our faults lie. Where there is light, there can be no darkness. Light causes objects to cast shadows, but it also illuminates flaws. When I paint or draw, I often hold my work up to a bright light source so that I can see if I have made any obvious mistakes. The strong light is the only way to be sure, especially when I am working on a piece that is composed primarily of darker colours.

Of all the light that shines into our lives, the light of Christ is by far the strongest and the most beautiful. But that light can, certainly, be blinding.

I have, in my room, a fibre optic lamp that gives off a pale multicoloured glow when I turn it on. I bought it because it is incredibly “stimmy”, for both my visual and tactile stimulation. I turn it on before I go to sleep at night and watch the fibre optic “fan” spin slowly and change colour as it turns, as I hold my hand and sometimes my wrist or arm just close enough that I can feel the tickle of the ends of the fan. It is incredibly relaxing.

During the winter, I get up while it is still dark outside. My eyes, being hazel, are very sensitive to bright lights first thing in the morning, and so I use the fibre optic lamp to help my eyes adjust to the idea of being awake and having light in them. Five to ten minutes of the lamp being on as I lie in bed with my eyes closed is enough to accustom my eyes to the light enough that when I turn on the bright overhead light in my room, my eyes adjust almost immediately.

We are the light of the world.

I liken our role - the role of Christians the world over - to the use I make of my fibre optic lamp during the winter. We are to bring the light of Christ to the world, making it more palatable… not as blinding. Once their spiritual eyes are used to the idea of this light, then Christ Himself can shine into their lives with His full radiance.

My fibre optic lamp gives off a less harsh kind of light because the light is diffused through the fan, and because of the light filters that the light passes through before it gets to the fan. It still has a regular light bulb inside - the kind that will blind you if you stare at it too long.

As Christians, we are like that fibre optic lamp.

The light that we give to the world is not much compared to that offered by Christ, but its source is the bright Truth of our Lord and Saviour, and that shines through us, through the multicoloured filters of personal faith and experience, and through the fibre optic fan of our actions in this world.

Getting back to fire and transparency…

Fire is transparent.

Just look at it sometime. Really watch it.

You can see through it a lot of the time.

I wonder how we can expect to reach the world - to give our light to the world - without being transparent?

Jesus was transparent.

He lived a transparent life. He did not gloss over things, He did not shy away from confrontation. He talked about the hard stuff, and He took the challenges presented Him without a second thought. Yes, He was vague about some things. But fire is not completely transparent - not by any stretch of the imagination. If it were, then it would not have any colour associated with it.

I think we forget about the transparency of fire when we ask God to “light the fire again”. We want the energy and the passion that are associated with fire, but we don’t realise that part of being on fire is also being transparent.

To live a transparent life is to be as completely real as possible. It is to truly be “in the world but not of it”. It is to meet people where they are at, instead of expecting them to somehow find their way to where we are. To connect with others on their terms, in a real way. To be your self, instead of wearing the masks we put on so often as we seek our place in the world. To not be afraid of others seeing our flaws. For nobody is perfect.

To live a transparent life means that not everyone will like us. In fact, some people will hate us outright. We may lose our lives. But transparent lives are passionate lives, full of movement, and they are worth whatever time we are given on this earth.

Who else out there is willing to take that step into the fire and come out transparent on the other side?

Christ Church. Holy Saturday: Easter Vigil.

2006-04-15T23:12:00.000-06:00

I went to Easter Vigil tonight at Christ Church. It was wonderful.

We began in the Hall with four readings, told by parishioners - just told, not read straight out of the Bible or anything. They were extremely well-done. And then the homily.

Then outside with unlit tapers for the lighting of the new fire, from which the Paschal candle was lit. The priests nearly caught themselves on fire, as it wouldn’t light and then once it did the flames leapt two feet into the air.

And then into the dark Sanctuary, lighting our tapers from one another’s candles as the flame from the Paschal candle was passed throughout the congregation.

Then we renewed our baptismal vows and all were sprinkled with water.

And then the altar was re-dressed, and we celebrated the Eucharist.

A sung Eucharist, no less. The rector has a beautiful voice. I’d heard snippets before, but this was the first time I’d been present for a service at which she was presiding.

As we were leaving the Sanctuary after the service, one of the parishioners greeted me and said it was nice to see me there.

Parishioner: They didn’t have a service at Holy Trinity tonight?
Me: No, they’re not Catholic enough for that. And I’m too Catholic for them!

I brought along Bethany tonight, who also grew up in the Anglican church, in an Evangelical parish, with Evangelical parents (who are members of the Essentials movement, just like my own parents). She is now a member of the Pentecostal church at which she works.

I commented that I love the Easter Vigil… actually all services like that. She said that she does, too. “It reminds me of my roots.” She hadn’t been to an Easter Vigil before. I’m very glad she liked it, because maybe we can go together next year. I don’t mind attending these services alone, but being able to share such things with the people I love is an amazing blessing.

There’s an odd sort of disconnect for me to go from the pomp and ceremony and beauty of the service tonight to the informality of the service I will attend tomorrow morning. But I’m sure it will be fine.

Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit. Alleluia, alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia!

*****

**Part of an E-mail**

Service tonight was beautiful. I love the pomp and ceremony of the Easter Vigil, especially when it’s as “Catholic” as the service was at Christ Church tonight. Bethany appreciated it, too, though she’d never been to an Easter Vigil service before (she did grow up in the Anglican church, but a more Evangelical one than Christ Church is… and she is now a member of a Pentecostal church). I was happy to share it with her… I love sharing the things I love with those I love, especially things of faith.

…

There are many things about the church that I love. There are also many things about it that I would like to see change, but by and large I continue to attend services because I love the church, and I love to worship God with others who love Him.

Tomorrow morning I will attend Holy Trinity, where there is a band and very little pomp to the ceremony. It will be a fun service. Tonight was fun, as well, but in a different way. For one thing, we had a fire out front of the church for lighting the Paschal candle. It didn’t light, and then it lit and I was worried the priests were going to go up in flames as well (what with their robes and all), but they didn’t. The flames leapt high and were yellow and warm and lovely. Easily two feet into the air as they danced. And I watched them and thought that I might need to use watercolours to paint fire, because it is so transparent.

And that thought gives me an idea for an essay, but I will wait to write it until tomorrow because it is so late and I do need to sleep tonight.

The cry of our hearts.

2006-04-12T11:06:00.000-06:00

God of contradictions
God of unchanging
solidarity.

How am I to remember to fear
the greatness of the One who created Eternity
when I am reminded at ever turn
that He is also supposed to be my best friend?

How do you fear a friend?

How am I supposed to find You
praying in the Garden of Gethsemane
when it’s the simplest of truths
that I have trouble coming to in faith?

How do you come to faith?

How can I sing Your praises
with the angels who love You unquestioningly
when I always have to ask
and I don’t want to be who I am?

How do you worship ‘I AM’?

How do I know You’re around
listening to my tearful, terrified prayers
when I can’t quiet the sounds
and come in silence to feel Your presence?

How do you enter that presence?

How do I find that place again
that I can come around the corner once more
crawl into Your lap for comfort
walk with You in the orchard
eventually fly above it all?

How do I find the You I’ve forgotten
the You I never knew
the You I need?
How can I reach far enough,
strive hard enough,
give enough,
be enough
to reach You?

How can I feel You?

I must be Thomas once again,
doubting in the face of all the evidence,
wondering if it’s really true,
hoping that it is…
knowing deep down that it has to be.

How do I come back?

Where do I go?
What do I need?

God of contradictions
God of unchanging
solidarity.

Tehillah. Aftermath.

2006-04-10T23:03:00.000-06:00

Hurt
Bruised
Cracked
Breaking

I don’t want to be broken, God.

It’s my own foolishness that brought me here.
Won’t You reach down and heal these wounds
anyway…?

Pain
Loved
Scorned
Leaking

I don’t want to be this holy, Lord.

It’s my own foolishness that brought me here.
Won’t You reach down and heal these wounds
anyway…?

Fear
Stained
Maimed
Seeking

I don’t want to be afraid of love.

It’s my own foolishness that brought me here.
Won’t You reach down and heal these wounds
anyway…?

Hold me close, surround me with Your tangible love. Don’t let go, though I struggle to be free. I need You so much more than anything - or anyone - else.

*****

I don’t know why I feel betrayed. It’s not my heart that just got dashed to pieces. But it could be. It could be me. And that hurts. It is frightening. The fear is heavy within me. It threatens to overwhelm all the good I know of him. Because part of the fear… part of the fear is that I don’t really know him, that everything is a lie.

Oh, God, I don’t want this fear!

The Solitude of the Garden

facing fear
looking it in the eye
and telling it,
"not today.
you don’t win today.
I am stronger than you.
God is my refuge,
God is my strength.
God gives me victory.
and though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him."

*****

Bethany wrote about “Open Love” today, and reading it brought tears to my eyes.

Janna is patient, Janna is kind. Janna does not envy, Janna does not boast, Janna is not proud. Janna is not rude, Janna is not self-seeking, Janna is not easily angered; Janna keeps no record of wrongs. Janna does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Janna always protects, Janna always trusts, Janna always hopes, Janna always perseveres.

I was hurt, today, by actions taken by someone whom I have chosen (perhaps foolishly) to trust with my heart. He did these things before we got involved with each other, but the matter, it seems, is not yet settled, and so I have been damaged. An innocent bystander, as it were, caught in the crossfire.

Bethany writes, in part,

we can say Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs but do we really follow-through with that!? It’s not as easy as it seems, and we seem to find excuses to not encompass this in every aspect of our life. “You don’t know what they did to me! How can I be expected to LOVE when faced with repeated hate and rejection?” Does all that really matter?! God is just asking us to love.

I’m not battling my ability to continue loving in this situation. I gave over my heart, and that’s that. Somehow, I am even managing to be loving towards the other person involved in this situation. It isn’t easy. But I am doing it.

But love trusts. I have to trust. And that trust has been damaged, today. The rest… the rest I can claim, as part of my love for him. But trust… that is going to take time to build up again.

I hope, I do, that the fears I am battling now are truly foolish and will be proven to be nonsense. And I am prepared to persevere, to work until there is nothing left to work with.

…when Bethany gets to the point of her post, she is talking about open love. Loving with abandon, really. The idea of reaching out, in love, in spite of being hurt and damaged and betrayed.

This kind of love is risky, don’t get me wrong! And with this kind of love I can promise you that you WILL be hurt. But did that deter JESUS from loving us?! And what kind of hurt can’t be healed by the power of His love towards us?

Risky? Never! God wouldn’t ask us to do things that are difficult… would He?

“How many times must I forgive someone who has hurt me?” asks Peter. “What do you think about seven times?” That’s a lot of forgiveness. I’m being pretty generous here.

Jesus smiles at Peter and shakes His head. Poor sheep, you think you are close, but you are so far off the mark… “No, Peter. Not seven times. Try seventy-seven times.”

Peter is dumbfounded. How does Jesus expect me to keep track of how many times I’ve forgiven someone? I mean, really!

Jesus knew that Peter didn’t get it, so He told a story:

Once upon a time, there was a king who wanted to make sure that his accounts were all settled with his slaves. Near the beginning of the process, he was brought a man who owed him a lifetime’s worth of wages. The man could not pay his debt, and so the king ordered him sold, along with his family and all of their possessions.

The man fell to his knees before the king, pleading for his life. “Please, my lord, have patience with me! I will pay you all that I owe, I promise you this!”

The king had pity on the man and let him go, saying, “I will erase your debt completely. Now go, and continue to serve me well.”

The man thanked the king profusely and backed out of the throne room. On his way home, he met a fellow slave. This slave owed the first half a year’s wages.

The man fell on the slave and beat him, demanding his money. The slave pleaded with the man just as the man had pleaded with the king, but the man did not have mercy on the slave. Instead, he had the slave thrown in jail until the debt was paid.

The rest of the slaves were incredibly upset, and they went to the king to tell him of these events. The king himself was distressed, and he summoned the man to him.

The king said to the man, “You horrible man! I was lenient with you when you begged for mercy! How could you not show the same kindness to your fellow slave?” He then had the man tortured until his debt was paid in full.

This is the same fate that awaits you, if you do not forgive others from your heart.

Matthew 18.21-35 (my paraphrase)

When I arrived at Tehillah tonight, I felt closed up. I sat during the worship with my feet up on the back of the pew in front of me, clutching my legs to my chest. I prayed. I tried not to cry. And then I wrote the first two pieces of this post. I began to open up again.

After the service… after some amazing corporate prayer that I felt working in me… I told Bethany the story of today’s hurt, and she prayed for me. I have had peace since.

The future is still uncertain, but I know that God’s grace and peace will guide me through this crazy time.

And whatever ends up happening, I will have God’s love within and I will continue to do my best to love with abandon.