Thank God for poets who take God's word seriously enough to be playful...

I give thanks to the Lord this day for poets who take God's word seriously enough to be playful: there are artists and musicians, dancers and painters, sculptors, photographers and word smiths who ALL know how to help us go below the surface into the realm of soul work.  As M. Craig Barnes puts it: "they have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore and express the truth behind the reality. Poets see the despair and heartaches as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary ~ and they describe this in ways that recognized not only in the mind, but more profoundly in the soul."

One of the poets who accomplishes such work every week in my Music Director, Carlton Maaia II: he knows how to make the piano and organ sing, he helps those of us bred in white New England sound soulful and he empowers the cautious among us to be bold in making joy filled music. He is brilliant, humble and a ton of fun ~ and I rejoice that he has cast his lot with us as we rebuild this community of faith. 

Another is my jazz mentor, Andy Kelly, who is the personification of hope:  he is a killer musician and a gentle warrior for peace who knows how to welcome and include everyone in the beauty of making music.  My band mates at church ~ Between the Banks ~ (Dianne, Brian, Eva, Sue, Jon and David) are another group of poets who bring light into the darkness.  And ALL of them were active in worship today giving birth to something I have prayed about for almost five years:  the blending of our traditional choir with the rock and jazz band!  It happened this morning ~ the integration of styles, theologies, ages and sounds into one chorus of hope and praise ~ that brought blessing upon blessing and gave shape and form to a vision of what it means to be God's people. 

I know that there are those who speak of growing the church by appealing to musical genres and other forms of segregation. In fact, I've been there and done that ~ and it works (to a degree.) It IS easier appealing to the lowest common denominator. But at this stage in my life I want something that feels closer to a community where MANY people gather together ~ old and young, rich and poor, male and female, gay and straight, classical musicians alongside jazz and rock hipsters ~ and all the rest.  Because, as that old rascal, Clarence Jordan, used to tell the segregationist of his generation:  "You know, you better get used to singing next to different kind of people now.. because as it says in the Bible, when you get to heaven ~ and I'm talking about eternity ~ there will be "a great multitude that no one can count from every nation and all the tribes and peoples and languages will be standing before the throne of the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches... all singing together:  Salvation belongs to our God!"  So why not integrate now?!"  (Revelation 7: 9-10)

It is good and right that it happened on a day when we honored Dr. King.  He was the poet par excellence of my generation.  Barnes offers these words that I think are spot on:

The civil rights legislation of the 1960s was largely led by President Lyndon Johnson, who often battled a hesitant Congress to secure the passage of more just laws. He was a political realist and he did what it took to get the votes he needed. Whatever one may think of President Johnson or the other policies of his administration, clearly history has already awarded him the tribute of being a leader through this significant time.

But it fell to someone else, a poet, to inspire the nation to accept the dream of a color-blind society. Without the dream, the legislation would never have passed. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the country into that dream only by taking us into a painful discovery of the injustice that lurked in the corners of our hearts. That was the truth behind the reality. But the white majority culture didn't accept this dream easily. The African-American community, whom Dr. King had empowered with one biblical image of freedom after another, led the rest of of to it.  They began by marching in the streets, and after the nation watched them mercilessly attacked by police dogs, fire hoses and angry mobs, they marched into our hearts.  But it took a realist and a truth-teller ~ a politician and a poet ~ to make it real.

Barnes concludes his introduction with words that I take to heart ~ and will drive home to my congregation next Sunday:  "Pastors are not the only ones working on the Kingdom of God. But they don't help by abandoning their specific call to be poets and taking on the work of the realists and the engineers.  Someone, you see, has to teach the people how to dream."

So thanks be to God for the poets among us: may they teach us how to dream!

In the name of love...

This weekend is, of course, the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday in the USA. He would have been 84.  We will mark this gift to the world tomorrow in worship @ 10:30 am starting off with a version of Oscar Peterson's moving "Hymn to Freedom" as well as our take on U2's "Pride in the Name of Love" and "Emancipation Blues" by Oliver Nelson.

One of the things I have cherished in the OWS movement is their counter-intuitive way of organizing and challenging the status quo.  They believe ~ and they practice ~ a way of learning, teaching and building community that refuses to treat people or things as a means to an end. In a word, they turn traditional politics upside down.  These words from Eugene Peterson speak to just that foolish and beautiful way of being that we so deeply ache for in our hearts.

Shalom ~ peace ~ is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by looking up her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone (into action), we have a demonstration of shalom.

And shalvah ~ security ~ has nothing to do with insurance policies or large bank accounts or stockpiles of weapons. The root meaning is leisure ~ the relaxed stance of one who know that everything is all right because God is over us and for us ~ in Jesus Christ. It is the security of being at home in a history that has a cross at its center. It is the leisure of the person who knows that every moment... is lived under the mercy of God.

Dr. King taught us something about living into the counter-cultural shalom and shalvah of God's grace.  May I embrace it and make it flesh in whatever days I have left...

The sacred silence....

Looks like we'll get a chance to break out the cross country skies today cuz man, the snow is pouring out of the sky.  As I've noted before, a quiet descends upon the region in a storm like this: not only are there fewer people out on the roads, but sounds are muffled and muted. A  gentleness fills the air in a unique way so that for a few hours it is almost silent.  Inhabited and still alive, mind you ~ not isolated or deserted ~ but more like sitting together with others for Taize or Centering Prayer.  There is life pulsating in the silence, but it is experience rather than stated out loud.

This sacred silence is sometimes like worship.  Eugene Peterson has noted that "worship does not satisfy our hunger for God ~ it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship ~ it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week. The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security. Our everyday needs are changed by the act of worship.

We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security. The words shalom and shalvah play on the sounds in Jerusalem ~ jerushalom ~ the place of worship."

Without a time in silence ~ without the embrace of the wild ~ without a walk in the woods I feel agitated and confined by worship.  So, it is off to the wetlands to feel the wind and the wet, to fall on my ass repeatedly (I am not a good cross country skier) and to soak up the silence.  And having been so fed, I will then be hungry for God in worship, too.

Later that same day...

Well, we got out into the sweet and sacred silence, but without the skiis as there was just too much snow.  Looks like about a foot has fallen since this morning, but it is magical.  Even our old dog, Casie, seemed to relish the trek. I give thanks this Sabbath for the silence and beauty, the sacred love of the Lord and a life that gives me the chance to be embraced by it all.

Now maybe a little red wine before I cook up some rainbow trout and wild rice.

Save the Nuba...

NOTE: I have been asked ~ and have prayerfully chosen ~ to periodically share posts with you on my blog about special projects as part of MEDIA CHANGE BLOGGERS. (check it out @  http://bloggers.mediachange.org/) Here is the first of a series written by Jessica that invites your participation. Thank you in advance for reading and opening your heart.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done had you been alive in 1940 and was one of those who knew about the Holocaust?

Would you have been a person of action or a person of silence?

It is perhaps one of the most important issues to wrestle with. More than once in our lifetime we will find ourselves at a crossroad, one where the decision we make will reveal as much about our character as our convictions.

There is a genocide happening right now in Northern Sudan. The government is eradicating their own people. If we don’t speak up and help, no one else will. Each time North Sudan launches an attack to kill their own people, and we in the Western world remain silent, we give our permission to continue.

It is easier to overlook what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Sudan because the task feels overwhelming and thinking about it can make us feel helpless.The truth of the matter is that one person alone cannot save the Nuba People. But a community of people acting in unison can.

One of the most extraordinary acts found in humankind is when a member of the human race deliberately goes out of his/her way to help another. It is love in action. It is loving your neighbor. It is doing unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

This month, The Persecution Project Foundation has launched a campaign called Save the Nuba. In order to prevent another genocide, they need the help that only a community can offer. For those who can afford it, the need for food and medicine is desperate.

For those who have little to give, they’re asking for petitions signed, for awareness to be spread through social media (Facebook, Twitter and blogs.)

For those who are passionate about this cause, they need your help raising awareness.Will you join us in speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves?

Please visit www.SavetheNuba.com to learn ways you can help.
 

Heading out this morning into the snow...

Heading out this morning into the snow: pastoral visits and all the rest.  It looks like there is about 3 inches so far ~ with freezing rain to follow ~ made me think of this tune we were working on at a party last week.

Hmmmm... snow is getting worse.  I won't let it get me down ~ too pretty ~ but I might just revise my day, yes?  To everything there is a season, yes? And this season we've missed a lot of the cold and snow, so maybe this is just a time to embrace it?  Old Robert Frost, from just over the mountain, once wrote:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

So, let's see what opening my heart wide to the first real storm of the winter might bring today? Psalm 46 says:

God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains...
 "Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything."

In Eugene Peterson reflection on Psalm 46 he writes:

The second command is, "be still and know that I am God. BE STILL. Quit rushing through the streets long enough to become aware that there is more to life than your little self-help enterprises. When we are noisy and when we are hurried, we are incapable of intimacy ~ deep, complex, personal relationship. If God is the living center of redemption, it is essential that we be in touch with and responsive to that personal will. If God has a will for the world and we want to be in on it, we must be still long enough to find out what it is (for we certainly are not going to learn it by watching the evening news.) Baron von Hugel, who had a wise word on most subjects, always held out that "nothing was ever accomplished in a stampede."

Already this day is becoming something of a sweet surprise... don't let it bring you down, indeed!

Ain't life grand...?

This morning I literally woke up laughing.  I don't know what was so funny in my dreams, nor do I recall hearing the sound of my laughter when I woke up. All I know is that when I rolled over from a deep sleep, I felt my body laughing. Then, at midday Eucharist, the Psalm we randomly selected for lectio divina was Peterson's take on Psalm 85:

God, you smiled on your good earth!
You brought good times back to Jacob!
You lifted the cloud of guilt from your people,
  you put their sins far out of sight.
You took back your sin-provoked threats
  and cooled your hot, righteous anger...

And now love and truth meet in the street,
  Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!
Truth sprouts green from the ground
  and Right Living pours down from the skies.
Your goodness and beauty, Lord, shine
  and our land responds with bounty and blessing.

I've been walking around with these two experiences all day... made me think of the old joke about the Zen master walking up to the hot dog vendor on the street and saying:  Make me one with... everything!

Go figure... but ain't life grand?

what MLK showed me about the Lord...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, January 15, 2012 - honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Sunday.

Today we gather to listen for the sound of the Living God as articulated and embodied in the witness and words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of our nation’s most cherished and creative wounded healers.To be sure, he was also reviled and betrayed – in his day as well as our own – but I submit to you that Dr. King did more to help Americans live into our highest calling as the beloved community than any other contemporary politician, pundit, preacher or saint – and we ignore his witness only in hubris or futility.

• “Nothing in the whole world,” he once wrote, “is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity.”

• Think about that in the light of all that has taken place in our land – and in our name throughout the world – in the aftermath of September 11th and you cannot help but sense that Martin would have helped some of us see more clearly and act more boldly on behalf of that beloved community. Amen?

What’s more, because he knew how to discern what the love and witness of the Lord Jesus Christ looked like in our generation, I must confess to you today that I still cannot study either the Bible or the newspaper without hearing something of the cadence of his challenge alive and well all these 44 years after his assassination.

• I watch the debates – and read about our politics – and hear Dr. King ask: How did it come to pass that our scientific power has outrun our moral power so that we have created guided missiles and misguided women and men?

• I read the scriptures for each week in preparation for worship – and then listen to how they are butchered and manipulated by those with a narrow and ugly partisan agenda – and hear Martin say: When did we in the church forget that hatred paralyzes life, but love releases it; hatred confuses life while love harmonizes it; hatred darkens life but love illuminates it?


I wrestle with the haunting fact that in the 21st century close to 50% of Americans now live at or near the poverty level and then hear him say: All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. So the ultimate measure of our soul is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand in times of challenge and controversy.

I still lament Dr. King’s death. I have been shaped and formed as one of the drum majors for the Lord through his testimony. And I have learned a few things about the Lord my God by his life. I was called into ministry just a few short months after his assassination. I wrote my undergraduate thesis in political science on the methods and morality of his nonviolent movement for full civil rights. I studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City with four of the heirs of Dr. King’s legacy – James Cone, Cornell West, James Forbes and the late James Washington.

In fact, Brother Forbes – late the Senior Minister of the great Riverside Church but then a professor of homiletics – once called me into his office to ask: “Lumsden, why are you trying to get yourself killed?” And when I professed ignorance he said: “Look, man, you can neither fix nor solve all of society’s problems. What’s more you are in seminary now – so make the most of it – study with all the depth you can. And remember even Dr. King and Gandhi took some time off for reflection – you should, too – and then afterwards you can get yourself killed, ok?”

In more ways that I even know, my ministry has been given shape and form by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So, what I want to do this morning is share with you three insights about God I have learned from the master. Specifically, I want to call your attention to what Dr. King can teach us about:

• The importance of God’s words in scripture

• The way the Lord often uses broken and wounded servants to advance the beloved community

• And why some of us are called to become fools for Christ in a world addicted to respectability

Are you with me here – three broad ideas – about words, wounds and wonder? Let’s see what the Spirit has in mind… and we begin with what St. Paul shared with us about being disciples of Christ in I Corinthians 6. He wants us to know that flesh and blood as well as words and ideas and spiritual practices have consequences, ok?

Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you've been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit. Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

Here’s the context: Paul is speaking to a mostly Gentile congregation in the greatest port of the “Roman imperial culture in Greece. It contained temples to Aphrodite and Asclepius (the god of healing) as well as centers for athletic contests, theatre and culture.” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 287) It was a happening place where competing moral and social values regularly clashed as sailors and prostitutes, merchants and day laborers, rich and poor tried to live together into the blessings of Jesus.

Like all churches, sometimes they got it right – and this delighted St. Paul – but sometimes, like all churches, they got it wrong – really wrong – and Paul was eager to help his friends make some corrections. Specifically he wanted them to know that living according to God’s grace was not license for unethical living.

• Yes, you Gentile believers are no longer bound by the Hebrew covenant and its dietary restrictions in order to have intimacy with God, but that doesn’t mean you can do or say anything you want, yes?

• Taking one another to court with mean-spirited lawsuits doesn’t show the world the unity of the Body of Christ – nor does spending time with pagan temple prostitutes – or eating up all the Lord’s Supper and getting drunk on Eucharistic wine before your poorer sisters and brothers can even get to worship. None of that helps the cause of Christ so knock it off, ok?

Of course all things are legal – and God forgives all our sins – but don’t make a mockery of God’s grace because that both weakens our testimony in the world and brings down God’s judgment on your life. Your words – and your deeds – matter: so live like it! 

And I have to tell you, Dr. King treated this teaching with utmost respect. He WORKED at being one of America’s finest orators who knew how to blend scripture and politics in a healing way. But it didn’t come naturally to him: did you know that?
 
When he finished his doctoral course work at Boston University in 1954 and settled into the pastoral ministry of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, the word on the street was that “Dr. King was a good but not great preacher.” So he worked on this. He knew that words mattered – especially in the Black Church – where the scholar, Richard Lischer, has noted:

Life and language are so mixed together that it is impossible to describe how one emerges from the other. It is enough to say that for the black preacher the word does not function as a theoretical base for action. Rather, the word is a kind of action that cannot legitimately be separated from the struggles, temptations, suffering, and hopes of the people who live by the word. The community is carried forward by this word… for it is the soul of the church's body.

James Cone has rightly observed: Only in the pulpit – and later in the pulpit of our nation’s capital – did Dr. King lay bare his deepest and most moving commitment to God’s beloved community by showing us all how important words can truly be. In 1963, before the Lincoln Monument, King preached a sermon we know as the “I Have a Dream” speech. He had been working on it on and off for almost a year – making necessary improvisations – as he went.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on that promissory note…

Brilliant – authentic – moving and THAT was before the age of greed of the 1980s and 90s – or the current economic and moral debacle of this generation. King knew that words matter – especially the word of the Lord – so he worked hard at writing and speaking and interpreting those words within the context of our real lives.
That’s one thing I have learned about God from Dr. King: words matter – God’s words matter – and our actions have to be congruous with what we say about the Lord – lest we merely talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. First, words…

Second, wounds: one of the most powerful truths about God that I have learned from MLK is that time and again the Lord chooses broken, wounded and troubled individuals to advance the cause. That was certainly true in Martin’s life… But equally true for Moses or St. Paul – or Mary Magdalene – or Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the very patriarchs of our spiritual predecessors.

• Think about it: Moses was a murderer who fled his actions and wandered for 40 years of obscurity before God called on him to bring Israel into the land of milk and honey. What’s more, he was terrified of public speaking – he stuttered and was ashamed but God still used him.

• What about King David – the model for the Messiah – not exactly a conservative, well-behaved family values kind of a guy, was he? And my buddy, St. Paul? A mess – ugly, demanding, self-obsessed who was hell-bent on assassinating Christians when his life was turned upside down by the Lord.

So let’s be clear: all those whom the Lord calls like Samuel in today’s Old Testament lesson – or Jesus summons in the gospel according to John – are NOT 99 and 100% pure. Most are broken – many are morally and even psychologically wounded, too – but that doesn’t mean they are junk. Or can’t be used for serving the Lord in their generation because – news flash – God is not trapped or without options when it comes to human limitations, right?

God can and wants to welcome us all into service of the kingdom – women and men – whole and broken – wise and wacky. And I give thanks to God that I learned that from Martin Luther King, Jr. too: service to the Lord is NOT a club; so you don’t have to have it all together or all figured out or even have all your wounds healed BEFORE you enter into service. 

As my minister back in Connecticut told me in 1968 when I was testing my own call to ministry: “Don’t wait until you think you’ve figured it all out, ok? That will never happen. As Dr. King once said, ‘Faith is taking the first step when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

So first words – second wounds – and third wonder:  Dr. King made it clear to me and so many others that sometimes the way of the Lord leaves people scratching their heads in wonder about what the devil is going on. When he was lifted into service in Alabama and his house was bombed, some people urged him to quit the movement and wondered how putting his own family at risk could be of the Lord?

• When he was jailed – or stabbed – or humiliated and knocked down by defeat, his own sense of common sense caused him to wonder whether this was all worth it?

• And in 1967, when he broke ranks with the majority of his advisers and friends and began speaking out against the insanity and immorality of the Vietnam War… almost everyone wondered if he had lost his mind.

But sometimes you are called to become a fool for Christ in the eyes of the respectable and powerful in order to be true to God. Not everyone is called to be a fool – and this calling comes in different ways – but when it comes you know that you have to give up all illusions of respectability and power in order to walk with the Lord in a deeper way. Dr. King put it like this: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

• He’s talking about those who ache with Jesus for some of the last to become first – for some of our hatred to be healed by forgiveness – for some of the poverty to be filled with God’s richness and won’t quit until it happens.

• It means, as St. Paul discovered, giving up any sense that you will be liked by everyone because you won’t – and you certainly won’t be considered successful by the movers and shakers. In fact, you are likely to be hated and mocked and maybe even jailed and crucified.

Being a fool for the Lord is not easy – and nobody comes up with it on their own – it is too hard. But when this call comes, you find out that you have to respond to it for nothing else will bring you peace. Paul put it like this: We celebrate even our suffering because we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not fail because hope is God’s Holy Spirit being poured out into our hearts. To be such a peaceful fool for the Lord is a special calling – a unique discipleship – and Dr. King gave it meaning and shape and form for our generation.

He challenged us - he challenged me - to be a fool for love: imperfectly, wounds, flaws, fears and all.  And I give thanks to God this day for that challenge...
credits:
1) fineartamerica.com
2) beehivehairdresser.com

In the beginning, God...

The writer/pastor/seminary professor, M. Craig Barnes, writes:

You cannot determine who you are by what you do. But few people believe that anymore... The biblical depiction of life begins with the words, "in the beginning God..." And it ends with a magnificent future that is also created by God. Just about everything in between also testifies to the eternal truth that life is made, redeemed and certainly blessed by God... As our theologians remind us, creation occurred "ex nihilo," or out of nothingness. This means that all things, even the dust with which humanity was created, derive their existence from God. So when we seek a different identity derived from anything other than God, we don't actually become different but only return to the nothingness we were before God created our lives. This is what gathers in the pews of church every Sunday ~ creatures who believed the serpent's lie that their identity could be changed by reaching for something other than what they were given by the Creator.

Some believed they could get a different - preferred identity - if they only got married. Others thought they just needed to find a better job or buy a better home in order to have a better life. Still others cling not to dreams but to the hurts of yesterday ~ as if they could improve the past by holding it so tightly. And all that the reach for a different source to their identity has left them with is souls filled with the primordial nothingness. Having grown exhausted reaching for a preferred self, many just give up and settle for busy or comfortable distractions that numb the emptiness of their souls.

Man, does this ring true to me!  Every day I see some form of this truth in ministry ~ sometimes I recognize it in myself, too.  And always the outward form is exhaustion: more and more, we are sick and tired of not being ourselves created in in image of the Lord.  And like the ancient story of adam ha adama suggests:  we tend to keep blaming others for our bad or even sinful choices when all God wants is to love us back into health. 

One of the reasons I mostly cherish ~ but sometimes chaff ~ at living into my calling by God to serve as a pastor begins and ends with blame. Barnes notes that on a local level ~ NOT an institutional or theological level as my Celtic friend Blue Eyed Innis so carefully notes ~ complaints about ministry are usually "a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul." So, the blessing of being a pastor in a congregation has to do with inviting and encouraging a person to journey deeper into the wisdom of the soul: it is always uncharted territory, creative, challenging and fraught with danger but also deeply rewarding when both pastor and parish are open to the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I quit a doctoral program in Spiritual Direction after 9/11 because it became clear that in my Reformed tradition, most spiritual direction in a congregation was going to take place in a group setting. And while I learned a great deal in my first year of post-graduate study in this program, it was clear that individual spiritual direction was a long way away. Today, however, I find that I am doing both group direction and, in very limited and carefully defined ways, individual direction, too ~ and both are deep blessings to me. What's more, I see the opportunity to do more of this ministry taking root and shape the longer I am in this community. (Note to self:  this may be the next study/sabbatical forum, yes?)

Simultaneously, when individuals choose NOT to go inward and explore the wound or toxicity or fear of their soul ~ when they choose to stay trapped in the past and blame others (myself included) ~ well, this is the most frustrating and anguishing aspects of pastoral ministry.  And through one sad mistake after another, I've learned I have only two options in these cases:  1) Shake the dust off my sandals and move on trusting that God is God so I don't have to be; and 2) Pray that all souls will be returned home to the Lord ~ just some sooner than others.  I guess that implies a third and fourth option:  don't take yourself too seriously, learn to laugh a little at your failures and have a life bigger than just your church!

Barnes notes that the Christian hope claims that "in Christ we recover the life we were created to enjoy.  So let's be clear, we don't MAKE a living. We receive it through our participation in Christ who has brought us home to communion with the Creator." In a quiet, tender and playful way, the Bible gets it right AGAIN:  in the beginning God.

Hiding all away...

Do you know the old show Harry Nilsson did for TV back in 1971:  The Point?  I used to love it and still think of it sometimes...

It kept running through my head throughout the day as I got comments and reactions after today's worship:  some folks GOT what was going on ~ they were in-synch with the music and message about being playful and grace-filled in community when it comes to the mystery of baptism ~ while other folks were perplexed and even annoyed. Who knows what they wanted or needed ~ it was just clear that today's non-linear conversation left some folk with more questions than answers ~ and they were uncomfortable.

That was, I suspect, what was supposed to happen:  those who were ready to be playful found nourishment while others scratched their heads ~ or even complained a little. Now, it used to really freak me out when folks complained to me about not getting my message ~ or being disconnected from the flow of worship ~ and my insecurities ran wild. But over the years I've come to two conclusions about all of this.  First, I am not really in control of worship: after the worship leaders give it their best shot, the rest is up to the Spirit. 

And second, most complaints (about worship or the pastor or church finances) are really a "veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul" according to M. Craig Barnes of Pittsburg Theological Seminary. In his book about the pastoral ministry, he writes in the opening chapter of The Pastor as Minor Poet:

Since people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external. like a church's music program. But it doesn't matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of the soul until they attend directly to it.  And this is why people have pastors. To be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioners' complaints about the church... (No we have to) invite people to look beneath their complaints to their personal loss.

And THAT is the POINT ~ the perspective ~ the reality I embrace at the close of this day. It was a rich day for us all:  we reclaimed sharing joys and concerns in worship and shared some deep prayers of joy and sorrow; we sang with gusto and listened for what the Spirit was saying to the church, too.  And then some of us gathered for a feast in the late afternoon and shared loved and music and stories and lots of laughter.

Barnes writes:  Poets have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore, and express, the truth behind (our) reality. Poets see the despair and heartache as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary, and they describe this in ways that are recognized in the mind, but mor eprofoundly in the soul. (Most of the time) what a congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image.

I give thanks to God for the chance to explore faith poetically this day... and pray that I will have another shot at doing likewise tomorrow. More than that is out of my control, yes?

Lost memory of skin...

Last night I finished the troubling, nuanced, creative and insightful new novel by Russell Banks: Lost Memory of Skin. Writing in the NY Times, Janet Maslin concludes:

This book expresses the conviction that we live in perilous, creepy times. We toy recklessly with brand-new capacities for ruination. We bring the most human impulses to the least human means of expressing them, and we may not see the damage we do until it becomes irrevocable. Mr. Banks, whose great works resonate with such heart and soul, brings his full narrative powers to bear on illuminating this still largely unexplored new terrain.    

(go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/books/russell-bankss-novel-lost-memory-of-skin-review.html))

The story about a young and naive sex-offender challenges our sensibilities:  the  22 year old "Kid" aches for intimacy, but has only learned to experience it through Internet pornography.  From the time he was 10, his mother attends only to her own sad search for pleasure rather than guiding her flesh and blood. Consequently, the Kid is allowed to let his aching impulse for love lead him into degradation and addiction - without any clue that it is happening. As Banks has said, this is a novel that explores what it means to turn our children over to the wolves of this contemporary culture. "This is a story of how a good man losses his goodness."

(go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/books/russell-banks-talks-about-lost-memory-of-skin.html?pagewanted=all)

What's more, it is a story about how we are sacrificing our humanity in a world disconnected from "skin."  It is tragic that this man/child learns about love only through pornography; it is heart-breaking that he "doesn't feel real" until he sees his story being told on a computer screen. And there is the all too real indictment of the scriptures about the sins of the mothers and father being visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generation when the Kid discovers that there is more community to be found in the homeless camp for other sex offenders under the highway than any place else in our so-called healthy society.

This is an important novel - both for its critique of the still unknown consequences of our increasingly cyber-obsessed culture as well as its challenge to our all-or-nothing social norms - and I hope church groups choose to study and discuss it.  I am going to find a way in 2012 to do just that - hard stuff for some "Kleenex Christians" who are scandalized by the harshness of real life.  But God's grace doesn't stop at the suburbs... or polite society... or with the innocent.  God's grace was born in the filth of the stable - was raised up on a Cross at the intersection of religion and politics - and comes to us at the margins of our humanity. (It made me think of the workd Radiohead has been working in a similar vein...)

We'll be reading Jaco Hamman's A Play-Full Life first... but there has to be space this year for Lost Memory of Skin, too.

Listening to your life...

One of the on-going joys of the pastoral ministry is the constant surprises God brings into my life:  you would think that by now ~ 30 years into this thing ~ I would know how to take the  joy, horror, awe or tender acts of mercy in stride. But I don't. I regularly feel a palpable sense of mystery wash over me nearly every day. 

It could begin with the loving trust of a small child or the confessions of a wizened old addict ~ sometimes it is born while making or receiving music ~ or reading the NY Times. I have discovered how really vulnerable and bewildered I am, too, when an unexpected harsh or even cruel word is shared. Or when I wake to find I am exhausted and still have miles to go before I sleep.  And there are many times when the seemingly random visits, conversations and accidents of the day open my soul to the presence of the living God.

Call them epiphanies ~ appropriate for today, yes? ~ or a slipping in and out of God's kingdom, whatever analogy you prefer, I think Buechner gets it right when he notes:  "The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak - even the walk from the house to the garage that you have waled ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believer there is a God who speaks at all anywhere."

Yesterday, for example, three different ordinary encounters revealed to me something of the extraordinary hidden just beyond my perception. 

+ First, I had a conversation with a person who has been worshipping with us for about a year.  I don't know a lot about her but she was weeping during Eucharist this past Sunday.  I don't know the back story but followed up just to stay in touch only to discover she is a local visual artist and poet. We spoke about prayer and the mystery of God's still speaking voice that sometimes breaks into our art. She particularly loves the abstract expressionists (like me!)  So, we're going to try to collaborate on a workshop ~ or exhibition ~ or something as this New Year unfolds.

Don't get me wrong, the tears were always just below the surface in our meeting, but they neither define this artist nor shape the totality of her life.  No, God's mysterious and grace-filled presence is at her core ~ and in a totally unexpected moment, this truth was revealed.

+ Second, a church leader shared with me part one of our annual evaluation process.  Now sometimes this can be a real mixed bag ~ especially when there is someone with an ax to grind or even just those who aren't practiced at evaluation writing ~ and there was some of that going on here, too.  So, a few times I felt my defenses quicken ~ for good and bad reasons ~ and at other times I sensed that our small and struggling community of faith is growing deeper in our awareness of God's grace. 

As the conversation deepened, however, I realized that my defenses can be helpful in pointing us towards ways to solve perceived problems.  "That's a blessing," I thought.  "And they can also help me clarify and communicate more clearly, too."  Then I heard, "You know, when you first came I appreciated your casualness ~ the way you were helping us all slow down and take stock of who we were ~ hat was fun.  But as the years have progressed I've also come to see that below your casual and easy style is a deep, deep commitment to the Biblical witness of Jesus ~ and that has become very important to me and so many others."  Hmmmm... another surprise.

+ And third, as I was driving home to get ready for our jazz gig, my huge bass amp shifted in the back of the Subaru and smashed the rear window.  Not cracked or chipped, but totally shattered and that bad boy is history.  At first, it felt like I had been rear-ended ~ and clearly my head was shaken ~ but then I realized that the crash had come from within.  I felt nauseous ~ and rattled ~ and a wave of sadness washed over me because I HATE to deal with bureaucratic agencies.

So we drove in the 11F weather with the heat on high, trusted that no one would do further damage to our new/old car while we played the gig and unloaded all my gear.  And then we played one of the best jazz gigs I can remember in the past 16 months:  it was freakin' sweet!  And the place was packed.  And it felt healing and hopeful and loving and mystical all at the same time.  We had some great guests sit in on guitar and later sax and trumpet ~ and once we even shifted instruments so that Benny was on drums, Jonnie was on harp and Andy was on piano for a nasty-ass, Texas-style blues take on "Rock Me Baby." 

When we left, who cared that the back window was gone!?!  And this morning, the glass repairman helped me work out the details so that the insurance covered the whole mess. A cornucopia of surprises and blessings all born of the ordinary.  Again, Buechner writes:

God speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot, of course, life our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music.

Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear noting at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement.  But BE NOT AFFEARD, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. "Be not afraid," says another, "for, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our joureneys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him...

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments ~ and life itself is grace.

Oh yes, I find this happening over and over again... and still I am surprised.