Names, names, what is in a name? If our second child is a girl, we have a name picked out. If it is a boy, we are struggling. We have a shortlist, but we aren't in love with any of the choices yet.
The problem is that we have too many stipulations. It can't be too popular. It can't be too "out there". It can't start with D (because the DD initials would be a bit too busty), it can't start with E (we're not trying to have a whole gaggle of E kids), and it can't rhyme with any dirty words that would be highlighted on the grade school playground. We will have no Junior. All Wookie names have been ruled out per Stacy's request.
And the name must mean something good.
I'm not sure what my theology of spirituality consists of in terms of naming. It's tough to pin down. We want our kids to have meaningful names. Not that the meanings will necessarily hold some mystical and prophetically inerrant power. But meaning is important to us as a reminder of what we want our kids to value and who we want them to become.
What we've learned is that girl names tend to have better meanings than boy names. It's almost to the point where we are looking for a meaning-neutral boy name because we can't find enough that meet all of our criteria. But we'll see.
It's hard because Elli's name is perfect. We choose "Elliana" as her first name because it means "God has Heard" or "God has Answered". We felt like it was such a great statement about God hearing us before we even really know what we need or can specifically express it. Our adoption experience was by no means easy, but looking back we see that some (though not all) of the delays we experienced allowed for a timing where Elli could join our family. God closed and opened doors as necessary in a way that was really providential. God was hearing Elli, God was hearing us and God was acting on those cries. We did not "pick" Elli's middle name, per se. Her given middle name of "Thanh" means "elegant". We thought it was pretty and fine and we wanted to keep it so that she could have a connection to her heritage. But now, on her 3rd birthday, it's so amazing how well it describes her. He is elegance personified. She carries herself with a joy and peace that is elegant in it's resilience. Her tiny stature is elegant in it's beauty. She's an amazing kid.
It's hard to believe she is only 3. It's harder to believe she has only been in our home for 2.25 of those 3 years. But it's been a good ride, and she's been elegantly wonderful and we love her a lot.
As we await the drop of the next U2 album, we continue to look at some of the lesser known songs in the U2 library. Today's selection isn't so uplifting. Sorry. But there are a number of lines in the song that just resonate with me. Just really vivid images that I've wrestled with lately. So when the song came up in my itunes shuffle, it got the five stars, because I couldn't stop playing it.
Nobody else here baby No one here to blame No one to point the finger Its just you and me and the rain
Nobody made you do it No one put words in your mouth Nobody here taking orders When love took a train heading south
Broadly speaking, the theme of "God Fix Everything" is pretty pertinent. Because that's how we are, right? If God would just fix it, it would be easier to believe. Nevermind the fact that the brokenness around us just so happens to be a sign of our own habit of not relying on God, now we're like, "prove it".
Its the blind leading the blond
This is going to be a post sometime next week or the week after. But I just have to figure out how to say it without offending people who are very dear to me, and who I have really good relationship with. But one of my big struggles lately is what my place is in the community of believers. Like, how do you balance being a voice for justice while not getting completely embittered by how people are unknowingly contributing to paradigms of injustice? In a city where the rich and poor don't touch all that often, how do you give your all to what you are called to do, while at the same time not completely quitting on people who love Jesus but are blind to their own blindness at the moment? And maybe I'm not even saying it correctly in the moment. That's why it's a post for next week.
Its been a while since we saw that child Hanging round this neighbourhood You see his mother dealing in a doorway
I saw that play out a couple of months ago. It wrecked me. Bad. It was one of those moments where I asked myself "What the heck have we gotten ourselves into? And what are we really doing to make sure this does not happen in our society?"
So where is the hope and where is the faith And the love...whats that you say to me Does love...light up your christmas tree
This could stand to be in everyone's thanksgiving liturgy.
Jesus never let me down You know jesus used to show me the score Then they put jesus in show business Now its hard to get in the door
One year ago, an new station appeared on the KC radio scene. It was a fantastic day. For the first time in my Kansas City experience, there was a radio station dedicated solely to ESPN Radio. 24 hours every day of glorious national sports radio piped in from Bristol, Connecticut. I was thrilled, and listened to the radio station more than any other on the dial. 97.3 was my wonderland.
It was fun while it lasted.
Today I jumped in the car with Elli and flipped to 97.3, anticipating one of Colin Cowherd's rants on the BCS pairing. Lo and behold, no sports to be found on my FM dial. But wait. It gets worse.
What do you suppose they replaced my favorite station with? No, not country music. No, no. Not industrial metal, either. You guessed it. KLOVE Christian radio. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
For the record, I am not against music the glorifies God. Quite to the contrary. It's simply that the stuff that is played on "Christian Radio" does not tickle my eardrums. Just don't care for it. Most of it sounds canned and cheesy to me, and I resent that we insist on creating a Christian Music ghetto where we put artists in a box and sanctify them by applying a stamp of squeaky clean approval on them.
The whole situation is surreal. Sports sold out to the Christian Marketplace for the first time ever, and I'm crushed. Someone please rescue me from Bizzaro World.
God is doing a really great job of staying on message lately. I do believe I'm starting to get the point.
It all started a couple of weeks ago when we got a picture in the mail from an organization we supported last year. They sent a picture of what our money went toward, and at first I thought the pic was photo shopped. I didn't have a great reason the jump to that conclusion. I was just having a cynical day.
Upon further review (thanks to Stacy), I found out the pic was legit to the max. And as I looked at it, it humbled me. It occurred to me that it was the best money I had spent that year. It humbled me to think that God used our family to do something across the world, and it made me feel a little ashamed that I wasn't doing more. Perhaps some more generosity was in order.
Then we went to church. The sermon was about tithing, but what it really made me think about was the gifts and offerings that are given in addition to tithes. It also made me think about the practice of tithes and offerings as a spiritual discipline. Again. Generosity.
And then Barbara came over the other night, with pie in hand. Barbara lives across the street from us and runs and inner-city youth ministry out of her home. She's an angel. An angel who was bringing us a pie. As the story goes, her church had a picnic on Sunday. At the end of the picnic, she was given a pie. Her very first thought was not, "Wow! God is so good! I have a free pie!" No. She's a way better person than me. Her first thought was, "Wow! God is so good! Who can I bless with this free pie?" Answer: Dashiell's.
With image and word and fruit, God is staying on message. Be generous with a purpose, because God is generous to us and our generosity helps us keep our focus on God. Good message.
A Spirituality of Perfection is not a particularly lengthy book. And yet, it took me for freaking ever to read it. Not because I didn't like it. Not at all. It's a book I read a couple of years ago in a class I took, and I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to go back and read it without the pressures of academia breathing down my neck. The reason it took so long is because it is incredibly dense and was authored by a very intelligent professor from the University of Gonzaga. It was all meat. No stories, anecdotes or jokes. Pretty much a commentary on the book of James, but totally worth a read.
There are two particularly helpful theological lines of thought that Hartin brings out from James. The first is a great discussion on what is meant by "perfection" in the book. Among the plausible definitions are completeness and friendship with God, which he discusses in detail. The paradigm of completeness has been one that keeps standing out to me in my Biblical readings, as well as in the ways that I feel God is calling me to live out the gospel. Striving for my own completeness while at the same time joining others in the struggle to realize their completeness. I think it's a way healthier paradigm that striving to never ever ever ever do anything against the "law", because it's a more constructive concept than one that leads us to a place where we are living in fear and guilt.
The other concept that has had me pondering a lot is the idea of community ethics. That one is a little harder to chew on right now, because we are so often taught that we as individuals need to do the right thing. But what does it look like for communities to strive for completeness, and for entire communities to befriend God and God's values. And while you might think, "isn't that what the church does right now?", I would argue that our focus is way more on getting individuals to do the right thing as opposed to making decisions as a community that lead us down the path of completeness.
But, community ethics require vulnerability and honesty, and those things are hard to come by. And, as I'm finding out now that life is CRAZY, Elli is difficult to get out of the house on Sunday mornings and church is optional, it's also hard to invest the time needed to plug yourself into a community in a way where people really know you and you know them. So shame on me. Or, should I say in the spirit of community ethics, shame on US.
I think TV is actually helping me grow spiritually. Don't worry. It's not a religious station. That would just be crazy. PBS is the conduit through which prayers have been answered and more prayers are birthed.
In my worship class this semester we have been talking a lot about how we can experience both God's imminence and intimacy in services. This is an especially big need in the sermons and prayers, as American Christians are really bad at getting out of their own experience and interacting with God's children all over the world. How many times have you been in a situation where prayer requests are shared and they all are some incarnation of Aunt Bessie's sprained ankle. Not that God doesn't care about Aunt Bessie's bum wheel, but we just miss out on an opportunity to pray for needs all over the world and connect ourselves with the joys and needs of brothers and sisters from other cultures.
So one of my prayers lately is that I could find ways to be more connected with God's heart for the rest of the world.
Enter PBS. Enter Independent Lens.
Independent Lens is a showcase for short films (usually documentary type deals) that are produced by individuals.
A couple of weeks ago, they showed the film Black Gold. Right before watching the film I was thinking that maybe I had become a little hardcore in my Fair Trade only coffee mandate. Then I saw this documentary about the coffee trade in Ethiopia, and it was like God was gently reminding me that, no, trade practices in the coffee industry are a big deal. Zinger.
So last night Stacy and I were looking for something to watch. No compelling NBA playoff games to watch last night. No Soccer matches tucked away for later viewing. All Office episodes had been viewed. So we found an IL we had recorded that told the story of two doctors who grew up in Afghanistan, but then got blacklisted many years ago and ended up in the US. Now they are going back to do whatever they can to train doctors in the country, and try to improve health care in a country where the infant mortality rate is 18%. That's almost 1/5, and that's unacceptable.
So, this film was tough. Really really tough. And convicting. And sad that although I knew that women in Afghanistan had it bad due to (1) the country being used as a Cold War pawn by the US and Russia, (2) the Taliban being allowed to take control of the country once the Cold War ended and (3) very little outside support for rebuilding efforts, I never knew what it specifically looked like. Now I know, and I am convinced that it grieves God's heart. And it is just the tip of the iceberg, because it's not the only Third World country that is practically expected to rebuild itself, and it's not the only country in the World where women's rights are trampled on.
So now I know some of the things that God wants me to pray about. They bumped 95% of my prayer requests down a notch.
This weekend I achieved an all-time personal high in terms of the number of worship services attended in one 20-hour period. Before you etch my name on the "Mr. Piety" trophy, you should know that all of the worship services were required for a class I am currently taking on the practice of worship. If you are good with that, then I will gladly accept your trophy. Please remember that "Dashiell" has two L's. It's a common mistake on trophies, certificates and such.
Friday night my class attended Shabbat service at a local synagogue. Surprisingly, I've never been to synagogue before. I was thus very excited to experience it for the first time. In hindsight, I probably should have been a little more cautious. Not that the people there were mean or anything. In fact, they were very very nice. I just never realized how uncomfortable it is to go to a religious service and have little to no idea about what is going on or what to do next. With my limited knowledge of Hebrew I did alright, but what really helped me out was the gentleman sitting next to me who, noting the fact that I was badly limping throughout the service, gave me just about every clue imaginable to help me keep up. It gave me a new and healthy perspective on how people must feel the first time they come into a Christian church. Not an easy deal.
It would have behooved me to do a quick study on contemporary synagogue practices. Oh well. We did have a nice Q&A session afterword, which was helpful. I think the woman who met with us after the service was glad to have a group of seminary students asking questions, because we came in with a pretty good knowledge base as far as ancient Jewish practices go.
One down, six to go. That's right. Six.
Part of the class is for us to break up into groups of 3 and each plan a worship service. Then, we have to lead the class in worship. Since the class is a weekend intensive (we meet Friday night and all day Saturday 4 times throughout the semester), all six groups had to lead worship on Saturday. I was sceptical that it would be a good experience, but I was proved wrong. Because we all have diverse backgrounds within Christianity, there was quite a bit of variety to the services. It was healthy to not only see but also experience how other people worship.
The most enlightening worship elements were brought in by a Cherokee man in my class who is a minister to fellow Cherokees. He demonstrated how traditional Native American rituals have been combined with Christian theology and spiritual practices to provide ways to worship that honor both God and Cherokee traditions. For instance, to begin the service he had a small pot at the front of the sanctuary. He burned some Cedar in the pot and explained that the odor and smoke represented the Spirit of God. Then, he took an eagle's feather and wafted the smoke toward us, explaining that as we smelled it we should be reminded that God's presence was among us as we worshipped. It was pretty tight.
The way I figure it, since I attended 7 services in 20 hours, I don't have to go to church again until the middle of June.
I celebrated Maunday Thursday this year by attending my first ever author's event. Anne Lamott was in town, and I have enjoyed reading her ever since I was in college. One of the required readings in our Basic Christian Beliefs class was her Traveling Mercies, and it was a good exercise for college students in experiencing a new voice to express and understand faith. Now, Lamott is not for everyone. She can be very raw at times, and some folks don't deal well with the language that she uses. And yet, if you can get past those things, her books tend to be good reads because they convey a certain authenticity that a lot of Christian authors fail to capture.
This being my first author event, my expectations weren't that high. Let's be honest. Writing well and speaking well are not always direct correlates. In this case, however, my expectations were exceeded. I found Lamott to be funny and engaging, and the experience of listening to her read her own writing was great. What I really came away with was the impression that what she writes is really her. She's not putting on a show. She is allowing the words and stories to flow from her in a way that truly allows us a window into her own personal experiences.
The one thing I did not anticipate going into the evening was how many people I would know in the audience. Lamott is one of those authors that a lot of Evangelical Christians enjoy reading, but we're always a little leery to admit it. You might get labeled as something less-than-desirable in the church. So, it was a little bit funny to go to this event and experience it as a sort of coming out party. It was like this sense of relief where people were going around giving each other enthusiastic greetings that implied, "Praise the Lord! There are people out there who are just like me!" It was a funny deal. And though Lamott isn't known for being the most reverent person in the world, she did make a point of not swearing since it was a Holy Day. And let me tell you, it was far more reverent than what I did for Good Friday.
The traditional phone book is pretty much an endangered species in my life. I am so wired that I typically just look things up online. I rarely ever crack the Old Yeller open these days, even though it seems at least three different companies court my business by delivering their edition to my doorstep each year. I think they need a little better demographic research.
For some reason I decided to go back, way back, back into time and flip through the Yellow Pages to accomplish my goals. As I was going through, I noticed an ad for a traffic attorney. It had a remarkably huge Jesus Fish on it. I thought it was a little bit funny, considering traffic lawyers are not known as the most reputable and upstanding folks in the world. And yet, I found that numerous traffic lawyers had Jesus Fish in their ads.
After mentioning the irony to Stacy, we thought of a couple of companies we know of whose owners are stud Christians. One of the owners we know personally, and he is hugely active and generous in his faith. He's really into missions and has a great spirit. Well, we were amused to find that neither of these businesses had ads that included any mention of Jesus or religious fish of any kind. It would seem they let their reputations as business people and Christians speak for themselves without the use of Christian symbols to sell their services. There's a novel idea.
The whole exercise reminded me of a quote from a Business professor we had in college. His feeling was that you could measure how much a car dealership was going to rip you off by how big their American Flag was.
Almighty Father, whose blessed Son before his passion prayed for his disciples that they might be one, as you and he are one: Grant that your Church, being bound together in love and obedience to you, may be united in one body by the one Spirit, that the world may believe in him whom you have sent, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. From the Book of Common Prayer
There seems to be a little tiff going on right now in the Christian community. There are some brothers and sisters who love Jesus who also believe that there are other political issues aside from abortion and gay marriage. They have preached sermons, written books and blogged about poverty, social equality, being friendly to the earth, etc. This has rankled those who have been pushing abortion and gay marriage issues pretty hard and a lively discussion has ensued about what Christians should focus on.
Ok. Two things. First, all of this talk about what we should "focus" on and what the "important" issues are is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure we can multitask. For instance, my wife and I have an adopted baby (a demonstration of a pro-life ethic) and at the same time we manage to be avid recyclers. Yeah, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We're not even that special.
So I guess my credo starts, "I believe in the ability of Christ-followers to multitask". I also believe that all our work to spread the gospel is for naught if we can't be civil with each other because then we aren't promoting heaven on earth. To borrow Rob Bell's terminology, we're inviting Hell to earth. It's our job to show people how to live harmoniously. It's our job to show people that the love of Christ is so revolutionary that it keeps us from engaging in shallow power plays for political influence and instead shows that world that our lives have been revolutionized in to those of servants who give of ourselves (even if nobody notices, not even Washington) because Christ is calling us to a more robust and full life. Life abundantly, if you will.
I think you can be green and be a Christian. I don't see how you can't. It's not worshiping the earth, it's being the best steward possible toward the earth that God has blessed us with. And I'm pretty sure that we'll still have time to live out other Christ-like ethics as well.
A couple of weeks ago I turned 27 and decided to celebrate my birth by going on a date with my wife to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. While this might not seem like the most celebratory event in the world, it made sense seeing as though tickets to the exhibit were $20 per person. That's a tad more than the Dashiells spend on most of their entertainment outings, so we decided to have a theological birthday bash. Holla at ya' boy.
While some people find it funny that this particular outing was my birthday outing of choice, it is even funnier when it stands as a perfect dichotomy against what we did for my 25th birthday. That was the year where I lobbied for a Chuck E. Cheese throwback celebration and my wife responded with an all out bash including a cake and tokens. Nothing like seeing your 25 year old husband called up to the stage to dance around with all the little kids while Chuck and the gang serenade them. Lest you think that I've been overcome by a sudden dose of maturity over the past two years, fear not. It just so happens that the parts of me that are way deep and serious can harmoniously coexist with the parts that scream inner child.
So back to the scrolls. For those who aren't totally up on their biblical archaeology, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of biblical manuscripts that date back to about the time of Christ. They contain copies of just about ever book in the Hebrew Bible (what many Christians have dubbed the "Old Testament") as well as some other ancient commentaries and apocryphal books. They are considered national treasures by Israel, and are some of the most (if not THE most) valuable relic for both Jews and Christians.
If you happen to be in KC between now and May I totally advise you to plop down the twenty dolla bill and check out the exhibit. The two things that struck me going away included:
1. There's just something reassuring in knowing that the biblical manuscripts that Jesus read from are consistent with the ones we read from today. It would be really deflating had they found these scrolls and realized that significant editing had taken place between then and now. It shows how important these texts have been throughout history that people have been so diligent as to copy them down perfectly and study them carefully.
2. The group that made the scrolls were really hard core. Historians have had to piece together their story, so they don't know every exact detail of their lifestyle. What they do know, however is that these people took their spiritual lives so seriously that their very existence was focused around remaining as pure as possible. While I do not subscribe to the notion that God wants us to withdraw from society and make up holy sects, it is amazing to look at how seriously some people take their faith and to what lengths they will go to to draw near to God.
Any suggestions as to what I should do next year for my birthday?
All I wanted was my own copy of The Book of Common Prayer. It seemed like an easy enough request. After all, it is an essential worship tool for a significant number of Christians and is the primary liturgical resource for the Episcopal Church (USA), the Church of England, the Church of Scotland and many others. Numerous times I have heard it referred to as "one of the major works of English literature". It must be the only book to fall into that category that you can't find anywhere.
I had a particular yearning for this book for a couple of different reasons. First, I needed a book of order for one of my classes and I felt a certain compulsion toward this particular book when my professor raised the point that most Evangelical churches these days follow the Hallmark calendar more than they follow the Christian calendar. Ouch. I know some absolutely smashing people who work for Hallmark, but it is true that the early church was probably a little more in touch with the spiritual rhythms of the year than Hallmark is.
So I resolved to not only get the book for class but to actual use it. In fact, I plan on using it daily through Lent beginning with Ash Wednesday when I will attend a service at an Episcopal church. I'm excited for the event because I have very little experience in High Church worship, so it should be an illuminating experience for me. If all goes well, I will actually use The Book for an entire year and for the first time in my life experience what it is to worship according to the Christian calendar.
With all this in mind, I set out to find my Book of Common Prayer last week. I was a little panicked, because for some reason I thought that Ash Wednesday was last week. That would have been bad news, because procuring The Book is no easy task. I first tried one of my favorite used bookstores, but to no avail. So I moved onto a favorite independent bookstore only to be offered a novel called a Book of Common Prayer. That just wasn't going to cut the mustard.
Now, I could have just ordered one online, but I'm not that type of guy. Whenever I need to purchase a particularly important volume for my library I feel as though I need to have a relationship with the book. I want to touch it, flip through it and smell it. This can become a weakness when I have to search through numerous bookstores because I am indeed prone to book lust. There is something about the smell and the quiet and the sights of a book store that make my pulse race. There are always wonderful volumes calling me from the shelves and begging me to take them home. And yet, I can't do it. I can't take them all home, no matter how much I might want to. I really do deserve a pat on the back for buying exactly zero extra books during my quest for The Book.
Ok. Back to the story. So after many attempts at being quaint, I finally broke down and trudged into Barnes and Nobel. It's a great store, but it lacks a certain personality. It seemed to be my last hope though, so I bit the bullet and did it. No dice. Not one copy of the book in the entire store. Sigh.
Finally I called one of the largest Episcopal churches in town. The thought ran across my mind to just slip in and steal one of the pew copies, but then I'd have to be reminded of that little sin every time I grabbed the book and that didn't seem like the optimal paradigm for worship. Plus, if the church secretary or Priest caught me on my way out the door I would then have to run over an older person, and I really didn't want to put myself in that situation. Plus, they are probably way more holier than I am and my random act of selfishness would just increase the stratification of holiness between the two of us. So I just called and asked where they thought I could find a copy of The Book. The bad (and amazing) news was that they didn't have any in their own book store. That's just odd. The good news was that they were able to point me in the direction of a Catholic bookstore down in the hood (where I work) where I could probably find one.
Viola! Four stores and two phone calls was all I needed to find a book that should have just been raining down from heaven like manna.
Willow Creek Community Church has a sermon series available to churches called Just Walk Across the Room. It is a campaign to encourage Christians to step outside of their comfort zones and share their faith with their friends. Our church is currently going through the series, which is my first experience with the material.
After yesterday's sermon however, I left wondering if the series is asking the wrong question. At it's basic level, it's asking if we are ready to go across the room and share our stories of faith with others. That's fine and dandy, but what if a lot of Christians have really sucky and uncompelling stories? What if God has invited us to participate in larger and more profound stories but we have been content to live in small stories that aren't all that moving.
What makes a good story? Tension. Plot shifts. Words and actions that are unexpected.
Look at the way Jesus and his disciples interacted. The ministry of Jesus was counter cultural and risky. It risked social status, it risked Jesus' personal safety and it risked upending what just about everybody wanted from a savior. It invited people into a whole new way of life. The reason so many Jesus movies are boring is that they don't address much of this stuff. They reduce Jesus to this soft-spoken man who gently preached sermons and flashed infomercial smiles. Whatever. Jesus lived life. He expected his disciples to live life. He expects us to live life.
At the beginning of Luke 10, Jesus sends out 70 disciples. He doesn't tell them to go to their friends and share their faith. He tells them to take nothing with them, go from town to town and spread a message of peace. He tells them that the work will be hard and that they might not be met with reciprocal feelings of peace. Honestly, I think the process was as much for the disciples as it was for the towns they were visiting. I'm sure they had days when they didn't know if they would be able to eat or have a place to stay, but then experienced God's provision. Not because they had an American Express Black Card, but because they had nothing and so anything they were given was obviously a gift from God. It was an exercise in trust. That's pretty hardcore.
The difference between what Jesus is calling us to do in walking and what we do now is that currently Christians are really interested in being safe. A lot of Christians live and worship in places that are not risky. They move out of dangerous parts of town into stable and homogeneous populations that have the appearance of stability. They seek convenience and comfort. Honestly, how do you expect to do justice and love the poor when everyone in your community is stable and self-sufficient. It's possible, because I work with people who do it but it's hard and a lot of us don't do what is necessary to make this concept a reality in our lives.
And so our lives are so antiseptic that our goal is to simply move out of our comfort zones and walk across the room to talk to people. Fine. But I think a better encouragement would be to walk across the room and live life. Instead of having a conversation that takes me out of my comfort zone, maybe I should be living a life that takes me out of my comfort zone. Because when I do that, I'm relying on God. The story of my faith becomes a story that is compelling and has a lot more to do with God sustaining me and giving me space to live than it does with the trite things we usually talk about when it comes to our spirituality and our relationship with God.
Sometimes it’s tough to get things out of your head. Songs, slogans, images. Last week, I had two quotes that just kept bouncing around. Sometimes the bouncing hit nerves. Other times the energy of the bouncing caused outward actions. The quotes and my thoughts…
You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. -John Ortberg
This quote came up a few weeks ago at my silence and solitude retreat. It then made an encore appearance on someone’s blog, though I can’t remember which one I was reading at the time. Ortberg’s words really struck a chord with me because there are times when I really hate the pace of my life. The most frustrating time as of late was the period between Thanksgiving and Dec. 22 this past year. We were running all over the place like crazy and we never really got our feet under us. We didn’t even decorate our house for Christmas because we didn’t have the time and energy. I was terribly frustrated by the whole thing because I had no time for Jesus during Advent until we went to Portland and got away from all the commitments that were dogging us.
I thought it would be better after the New Year. And it was. For a while. But the past week and a half have been crazy and wild and I’ve been busting around all over the place. When I hurry then I start to grip, and when I start gripping then everything feels like it’s spiraling out of control. It’s like life starts moving so fast that I feel like I have to hold on tightly before everything flies all over the place, but that just wears me out even more.
So I have a new strategy. I only have so much control over my schedule. We are a busy family that has seasons of chaos and seasons of calm. Right now is a season of chaos. That being the case, I can still eliminate hurry from my life. I don’t have to run around like the sky is falling. I don’t have to be frazzled and disheveled. I don’t have to be a lunatic. You should say that to yourself every morning. It’s liberating.
Yesterday was a mad crazy day. Drop Elli off at daycare. Drive to class. Have three hours of class. 12:30 staff meeting. 1:30 prayer time. 2:15 kids start showing up for the first day of programming. 8:00 go home without feeling so trashed and tired that I can talk with my wife about my day and my thoughts and my feelings.
I didn’t hurry once all day. I just resolved not to be that guy. I resolved to walk at a leisurely pace. I resolved to not speed or ride anybody’s bumper. I resolved to take deep breaths. It was so good. There was no grip and there was no chaos. There was indeed a lot to get done, but it all got done and I wasn’t late to one thing all day.
And when it was all said and done I felt good.
The church is never a more peculiar people than when it points to the alternative of the peaceable reign of God From Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly (p. 92)
Ok. This war thing is killing me. From the start it has been ill-conceived and poorly executed. As life would have it, we are where we are and I have no time machine, so we have to figure out a solution.
But what’s a Christian to pray for? More troops and a swell of violence that will hopefully restore order and eventually bring peace? A withdrawal that will stop fighting between the US and the insurgents, but that will leave Iraq a disaster for decades to come? Maybe we should just pray for some kind of miracle to get us out of this thing.
Granted, if I had a macro answer it would fall on deaf ears. VP Cheney made it abundantly clear on national TV last Sunday that this administration refuses to run the war by committee because nobody has constructive ideas. So they are disregarding the diplomatic suggestions that the Iraq Study Group made, as well as the feedback from their own generals that they need 30,000 more troops to get a leg up on the situation as opposed to the 20,000 that the administration is sending. Essentially, the administrating is doing everything it can to listen to nobody.
So if the macro solutions are going to be perpetually flawed, there must be some people out there who are living incarnationally doing what they can to lend a reconciliatory hand to the Iraqis. If anyone has heard of any ministries or individuals who are doing that kind of work in Iraq please let me know because I would like to pray for them and support them.
Last night I made it back from my first multiple-day silence and solitude retreat. I highly recommend it, though I suggest you do a little reading before you go. To kick off our time, we looked at some Dallas Willard and some Foster. Both were really helpful in setting a good tone for the three days. I had some good time to be quiet and rest. I had a chance to evaluate different aspects of life and spirituality. I even had a couple of revelations that I might share someday. Honestly, it takes a lot longer to process everything on the back end of a trip like this that I would have thought. I have quite a few journal pages of reflection to go back and work through over the next couple of days.
One completely trivial revelation that I don't need to reflect on much pertains to a certain snack food that I had the opportunity to consume for the first time last night. Have you ever had Pepperoni Pizza Combos? You need to. Those things are amazing. They are like a small dried breadstick that is wrapped around some type of dehydrated pizza "filling". I know. It sounds nasty. It sounded quite dubious to me, but I had a couple in the car and they were so stinkin' amazing. The flavor just keeps coming and coming, and it is so incredibly layered. I can't believe the inventor of those things didn't win a Nobel Prize. I heartily advise that you pick up a bag at your first gas station break on your next road trip.
Tomorrow morning I head out for a three day silence and solitude retreat. It's something The Hope Center does as a staff to begin the year. Three days without tv, computers, books and talking. It's us being alone together. Silence and solitude are some of the more neglected spiritual disciplines these days, and this is a great opportunity for them to have a prominent role in my spiritual life. I'm quite excited to have that time for prayer and thinking and meditation. Getting away from everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) and seeing where God takes me. So, until Friday I bid you a fond farewell. My first blog entry back will probably be very insightful, or mad crazy. Until then, I leave you with some parting photos.
Prayer is profitable because it makes us familiars with God. -St. Thomas Aquinas
I have really learned how true that quote is over the past few weeks. One of the cool things about my new job is that there is a huge focus on contemplative spiritual disciplines. For instance, last weekend we went on a 24-hour silence and solitude retreat. We'll do the same thing for 3 days at the beginning of the year. Built into our daily schedule is a standing 30-minute prayer time where we do some liturgy, pray through scripture and journal. If you would have told me that my move to an urban ministry would improve my understanding and practice of ancient Celtic spiritual practices, I would have openly mocked you. I would have then had to openly apologize to you because you would have been right and I would have been wrong.
It's also something that we practice with the kids we minister to, though in 10-minute journal and prayer blocks instead of the larger blocks. The hope is that these practices will be something that will stick with them, and that they will become familiars with God through the process.
What is personally encouraging about these practices is that all of the scheduled time is not burning me out on talking with God. You know how sometimes you can spend too much time with someone, and then you just get so sick of them that you need some space? Well, that's not happening this time. To the contrary, it has made me hunger for it more. It's like God and I have been having these conversations, and even though I knew that God was cool I am finding that God is way bigger and more interesting than I had previously thought. As I become familiar with God, there is this desire to know more and more about God and become even more familiar. Not that there won't later be periods of frustration and drought, but for the time being it is an amazing period of exploration and experience of the journey.
I'm a husband, a dad, a student, a Christ Follower. Mostly, I'm just this dude trying to figure out how God wants me to live this life, and I'm open to suggestions.
