Tim Keel's Blog

A New Year's Post & Prayer

I don't think I have often re-posted an earlier blog entry, but I recently came across this post from two years ago that I really like. It involves a New Year's prayer, a way of beginning the new year by welcoming Christ at it's advent. We will be opening our door at midnight, inviting Christ to be the first guest of 2010. Here is the content of the original post:

In my sermon yesterday, "The Opening Door" (January 7, 2008), I made use of a New Year's prayer my wife found in the book "Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community." We love this prayer book, in fact, you can find the daily office and readings online here if you are so inclined.

A lot of people asked me for the prayer we prayed so I thought I would make it accessible here. Enjoy.

This day is a new day
that has never been before.
This year is a new year,
the opening door.

(Open the door of your home)

Enter, Lord Christ -
we have joy in Your coming.
You have given us life,
and we welcome Your coming.

I turn now to face You,
I lift up my eyes.
Be blessing my face, Lord;
be blessing my eyes.
May all my eye looks on
be blessed and be bright,
my neighbours, my loved ones
be blessed in Your sight.

You have given us life
and we welcome Your coming.
Be with us, Lord,
we have joy, we have joy.
This year is a new year,
the opening door.
Be with us, Lord,
we have joy, we have joy.

Happy New Year. May your 2010 be filled with life and love the presence of God in both known and unknown ways.

Celebrating the Incarnation

So much of my life is up in the air, most of it unresolvable by me. Waiting, hoping, trusting...all the themes of Advent, really.

But now we are in the season of Christmas. I recently came across this extraordinary poem by Saint Symeon the New Theologian. He was born in Turkey in the 10th century. The story goes that at fourteen he begged to be allowed to enter the monastery, but was refused until he turned 27. Then only months after his entrance, he was tossed back out again. His passionate love of God was at odds with the age's more intellectual approach to theology.

This is a poem he wrote called "Awaken As The Beloved." You can sense his love of God and his hunger to experience Christ in all things. I actually hand-wrote this poem and gave it as a gift to someone I love for Christmas. Being a perfectionist and trying to copy it with ink on watercolor paper gave me multiple opportunities to interact with Saint Symeon's words, his passion, and revelation of Christ in him. While this poem is not explicitly a Christmas poem, the incarnation is so enfleshed by Symeon's words that it seems appropriate given that we celebrate the arrival of God in the body of the baby Christ. Good news for all who wait, who hope, who trust...

Awaken As The Beloved

We awaken in Christ’s body

as Christ awakens our bodies,

and my poor hand is Christ. He enters

my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully

my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

(for God is indivisibly

whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once

he appears like a flash of lightning.

Do my words seem blasphemous? – Then

open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one

who is opening to you so deeply.

For if we genuinely love Him,

we wake up inside Christ’s body

where all our body, all over,

every most hidden part of it,

is realized in joy as Him,

and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything

that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

maimed, ugly, irreparably

damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,

as radiant in His light

we awaken as the Beloved

in every last part of our body.

The Glory You Got

Earlier this month, in the first part of October, Mimi and I took a vacation to Maine. Maine is a place I have longed to go to since I was 16 years old. We had a really wonderful time there. One of the reasons I was excited to go was the opportunity it afforded me to see the Wyeth Center at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. Andrew Wyeth is one of my favorite painter. Prior to this trip, I have only read one biography of Wyeth (which is by necessity also a biography of the whole extraordinary Wyeth clan). In the Farnsworth Museum store, I picked up another and am now about halfway through Richard Meryman's Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life.

Wyeth was a fascinating man. He just died this year actually. His ability to see deeply into a place and into people and then capture the essence of either or both in paint is literally breathtaking. His technical skill is likewise overwhelming, and yet his technique doesn't overwhelm the painting itself - it serves it. He paints in a way that feels mythic and yet he does so not by painting some elevated subject matter but rather by plumbing the depths of the ordinary - what most people would pass by and mark with sentimentality, if marked at all. Wyeth saw the places and people surrounding him with dignity, pregnant with emotion and narrative that demanded deep presence and attention.

I was just reading about a particular relationship he had with a local farmer, Adam Johnson, the very type of ordinary, yet mythic person that populated and inhabited Wyeth's imaginative universe. Wyeth was forever walking the length and breadth of the land, connecting to it and the people that lived off of it. Meryman relates the following regarding Wyeth and Johnson.

"One day when Andrew passed by on a walk, Adam called out, 'You out sighting, are ya?' Gesturing to an upstairs room, he said, 'I've been up there sighting the Bible. You want to come sight me?' On the windowsill of that little room Adam kept a stone tablet inscribed with a verse form the Bible. On a table was his own huge Bible, festooned with colored paper markers, indicating passages that illuminated issues in each day's news. Adam was a student of the nobility and the limitations of God's children. He once said, 'Andy got one power and he won't get nothin' else. Andy got a glory of painting. I got a glory of cuttin' grass and I won't get nothin' else'" (190).

Perhaps this is the kind of wisdom - a wisdom of contentedness - that comes from sighting the Bible over a lifetime, of attending to a place, of becoming a student of the nobility and limitations of God's children.

The Mystery of Faith

I have had three books I have been slowly, meditatively making my way through over the last couple of months. I am finishing each of them up this week and I am the richer for it. This is a quote that I read this morning from Richard Rohr's Quest for the Grail - a book that employs the myth of the Holy Grail as a paradigm for the masculine spiritual journey.

"The mystery of faith is mythologically presented. Christ has died; therefore at least half of life will be absurd, unjust, painful, will make no sense to ego-consciousness. And Christ has risen; therefore half of life is beautiful, ecstatic, and sweet. This living and dying, good and bad, is all around us. It's the death and life we see everywhere in nature. Christ has died, Christ has risen - the inexorable wheel. Don't try to stop it, get on it. It's the dance. You ride it. You trust it. You trust the dying. You trust the rising. You live the dying. You live the rising. And Christ will come again and again and again. We cannot and we must not get off the wheel. Christianity is not about being 'good'; it's about solidarity with Christ in both journeys: death and resurrection - again and again."

Face to Face

We've been navigating a series on the Holy Spirit through most of this summer. Several weeks ago I talked about the Spirit as Presence. I talked a lot about the human need to "face" and "be faced." Scripture is filled with references to God's people seeking God's face. Internally, eternally, we are made to face and be faced - with other humans beings, but ultimately with God.

I've always wondered if this is what the Psalmist references when he writes, "But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the one who lifts my head high" (Psalm 3:3). The image of a person's face downcast, for whatever reason it might be so, and then of God gently placing his hand under the chin and slowly lifting it so that that person's face is looking into God's own...it compels me.

You can listen to the message here - scroll down to the message titled, "Coming Face to Face."

My good friend Isaac Anderson sent me a quote he read from Miroslav Volf that speaks to this very thing.

"I have always been fascinated by the phrase 'The Lord make his face shine upon you.' God's blessing, God's protection, God's peace, God's grace - all part of that same benediction - are great goods, and if I had to choose between them and God's shining face, I might well opt for them. But God's shining face outdoes them all. For God's blessing, protection, peace, and grace concern things that we possess, do, and suffer, while God's shining face concerns our very being. It stands for God's sheer delight that we exist and live before him. Yet I rarely 'see' God's face shining upon me, and given that I am an inveterate sinner, it is not easy to know exactly why God's face should shine on me."

Volf's right - it is not easy to know exactly why God's face should shine on me, apart from grace. Grace. How little we apprehend it. And yet...

Richard Rohr writes:

"Most myths include belief either in a benevolent universe, and hostile universe, or one that is indifferent. Until we accept that ours is a radically benevolent universe, we are not Christians...We cannot stay in the indifferent universe for long. It will soon deteriorate into the hostile universe. Instead, if we are lucky, we will finally meet what we call grace, the notion that someone is for me more than I am for myself."

Face to face with Grace, the lifter of my head.

To Love What You Command

I recently read this quote from N.T. Wright:

"One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may 'love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise.' That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel."

Amen.

Parsing the Global Context of Mission

In the first chapter of his book, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, Lesslie Newbigin gives a brief but nuanced history of Western civilization, particularly against a backdrop of the dominance of Islam by the end of the ninth century. Newbigin does this to set up the historical context of how "missions" developed in the church of the West in order that he might (re)construct a more robust theology of the missional nature of God's people, particularly for the time in which we live.

Integral to this work is an assessment of the current state of the world, particularly relative to where it has been. Newbigin describes the global cultural hegemony of the West since the time the Enlightenment, but then goes on to describe how the West's power has waned over the last several decades. By the way, Newbigin is writing in 1974.

"To look at only the most recent chapter of the story shows that the rejection of Western leadership by the rest of the world has developed though various stages and is not yet complete. A century ago the Western nations so dominated the world that most of the rest of mankind stood in awe of the white man and accepted his claim to political, cultural, and religious leadership. Even when the movements for political emancipation began, the leaders of national movements accepted in large measure the cultural leadership of the West, using Western languages, political ideas, and forms of organization."

Those forms of organization, by the way, are a good part of what I am seeking to address directly and indirectly in my book, Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos. Newbigin goes on to say, however, that it was not long before the West's cultural influence began to wane as well. Newbigin's argument becomes clearer at this point: the West has enjoyed unquestioned power and influence for a very long time, and that includes the church. In a globalized and increasingly sophisticated world such privilege and all the assumptions that accompany it are being deconstructed and dismantled. The challenge the becomes to "...learn afresh what it means to bear witness to the gospel from a position not of strength but of weakness." And to be honest, there is nothing surprising there. He and many others have been saying for a very long time. But then I think he makes an interesting turn.

"One almost universal feature in the world scene, however, seems unlikely to change in the near future. It is what has been described as the revolution of rising expectations. People in every part of the world are agreed in making demands upon society which in former ages were made only by a small segment in each nation. The French and American revolutions opened a radically new chapter in human history by establishing governments committed to the restructuring human life on the principles developed during the Enlightenment."

So while the political, martial, economic, and organizational biases of the Western world are being rejected or renegotiated, the standard of living it created and then glorified  is not. It is against this backdrop that Newbigin introduces one of the many challenges of mission in our world today. It goes to the fundamental nature of how we understand, and perhaps more importantly, incarnate the gospel.

"Everywhere people demand and governments promise 'the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' and everywhere people grow impatient and rebellious when the promise is not fulfilled; if there is one generalization about the human situation today that is almost universally valid, it is surely this. The inner relationship between this expectation of a new world and the Christian gospel of the reign of God is one of the issues that must be discussed in any contemporary theology of mission (italics mine)."

Spiritual, But Not Religious

I was invited to be a guest on a radio show of our local NPR affiliate KCUR. The show is called "Up To Date with Steve Kraske." Once a month Kraske hosts a religion roundtable. Today's topic was "Spiritual, But Not Religious."

I had a great time, and I think the discussion was a good one. If you would like to listen to the show, you can do so here: The Religion Roundtable discusses "Spiritual But Not Religious."

What is a Pilgrimage?

I am reading Paul Elie's "The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage." Elie traces the journey of four 20th century American Catholic writers: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton.
At the beginning of the book Elie gives as compelling and descriptive definition of a pilgrimage as I have read:

"What is a pilgrimage? A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken in the light of a story. A great event has happened; the pilgrim hears the report and goes in search of the evidence, aspiring to be an eyewitness. The pilgrim seeks not only to confirm the experience of others firsthand but to be changed by the experience. Pilgrims often make the journey in company, but each must be changed individually; they must see for themselves, each with his or her own eyes. And as they return to ordinary life the pilgrims must tell others what they saw, recasting the story in their own terms. "

Further Pentecost Reflections

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost. If you are aware of what Pentecost is, then like me, you probably know Pentecost as the day which God gave the Holy Spirit to the church. The account of this event is recorded in the first two chapters of the New Testament book of Acts. Beyond that basic information, however, often not much more is known.  

We took the opportunity on Sunday to dig a little deeper, to explore the Old Testament roots of Pentecost, the festival that is celebrated fifty days following Passover. In preparing for the message I learned quite a bit about what Pentecost both celebrates and commemorates: it is a agricultural festival that is celebrated at the beginning of the wheat harvest, and it also commemorates the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. After the Jews escaped Egypt following the Passover (where Jews were spared God's judgment on Egypt by marking their doorposts with lamb's blood), they passed through the Red Sea, entered the Sinai desert, and then 50 days later came to the mountain where, in the midst of a storm, God gave the Torah to his people. In the same way, after the Passover (where humans were spared God's judgment by being marked with the Lamb of God's blood), 50 days later God gives his Spirit to his people in the midst of a storm - fire and a violent wind. In the same way that the giving of the Law birthed Israel and marked them as God's covenant people, so the giving of the Spirit births the church and marks this new community as God's new covenant people.

There is a lot more to be said about this, but not here. If you want to learn more you can listen to the message here: A New Body and A New Spirit.

The reason I am rehashing this is to set up an email I received in response to the messag. It is from a woman in our community named Katie Kendle, a self-confessed math-nerd. She had some cool reflections that I received her permission to share. I love it when people's imaginations get cut loose by the wonder of God's Word and Spirit.

"DUDE. I did not have a chance to tell you how much I was affected by the scripture, by the message, by the Spirit today. When you set the scene, talking about how the disciples were celebrating the feast of Pentecost and remembering Moses receiving God's law, I could see where we were going a little bit and I almost couldn't stand how cool it was. How we have this amazing God who speaks to us in stories that have rhyme, events that resonate with each other. So here's my math-nerdy thought..

X = The first chosen few individuals, hearing God, following him.

X^2 (X-squared) = The Exodus, receiving the law on Sinai - God taking things up to another level exponentially, forming His chosen people, giving physical freedom and giving His law.

X^3 (X-cubed) = Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, and the indwelling of the Spirit - Again, God takes things up exponentially, expanding his chosen people to encompass all peoples, giving spiritual freedom, and law written in our hearts.

X^4 = .........? That's the next step, I think. Whatever heaven is, maybe it will be God adding another dimension to the stories we already know, bringing us up to a whole new level of freedom and law that we can't even fathom right now. I love the thought that we are like the disciples - faithful to the religion that has been handed down to us, celebrating feasts & fasts every year - with the knowledge that someday, sometime, when we don't expect it, God is going to take us, creation, everything, up to the next level. And then again and again, and that's eternity. I think God just has to be eternal because He's just thought of too many cool riffs on His stories to fit them into a finite universe.

So good. Thanks for sharing your math-nerdiness, Katie. And yes, come, Holy Spirit. Come quickly.

Cultivating Loneliness?

Yesterday I picked up an old issue of Conception Abbey's seasonal magazine, Tower Topics, from a magazine rack in my office. It was opened to an article I had been meaning to read for a while - okay, since fall 2006 - by Catholic theologian and writer, Father Ron Rolheiser. It is a short little column, but the thrust of the essay, titled "Cultivating Loneliness," really struck me.

In the essay Rolheiser discusses the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and how throughout his life he refused to avoid suffering. In fact, at key points in his life he knowingly and intentionally leaned into suffering, specifically loneliness. Why? Because he believe that by entering his loneliness he was able to touch the suffering that exists at the heart of human life. His ability to identify with what is common to all human experience, namely pain, is what makes his writing so exceptional and touching.

Rolheiser references Albert Camus' idea that "it is in solitude and loneliness that we find the threads that bind us together in community." For Kierkegaard, loneliness gave his soul depth. If we are willing to be present to ourselves in loneliness, refusing to anesthetize ourselves, then we will learn something of who we are. Rolheiser writes that "...by being introduced more deeply to ourselves we are also introduced more deeply to each other...[Kierkegaard] felt that what he had to give to the world came a lot from his own loneliness and that he could share more deeply in other peoples' loneliness only if he felt that loneliness himself."

I believe it is only when we are willing to enter our pain and stay there that any measure of true healing can take place - both our own and that of others as well. Why? Because I believe that it is often in our pain that we come face to face our limitations and maybe, for the first time, look beyond both ourself and our pain to find God there with us. I believe that is pain/suffering/loneliness where true compassion is birthed. I think this is what the Apostle Paul is up to when he writes that God is the God of all comfort, "who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God" (2 Corinthians 1:4). But not just that. I also believe that pain/suffering/loneliness is also where true creativity is birthed. Rolheiser says as much, quoting Kierkegaard, then opining beyond that quote towards what is to me a hopeful conclusion:

"'What is a poet?' Kierkegaard once asked. His answer: 'A poet is an unhappy person who conceals deep torments in his or her heart, but whose lips are so formed that when a groan or shriek streams over them it sounds like beautiful music.' Loneliness is what makes us poets, mystics, artists, philosophers, musicians, healers, and saints."

You can read Rolheiser's original article here, as well as a subsequent article he wrote about discerning when cultivating loneliness becomes not a fertile sadness that benefits others but instead an unhealthy, "sterile sadness that drains energy out of the world."

WOW! That's Worship?

Found this today (ht: Jason Weaver). Sad thing is, I think this is meant to be serious. Can anyone figure out if this is legit?

It kind of warms your heart, doesn't it?

Tears

I never cry when I should. When the circumstances warrant emotion, I usually find it hard to enter into what is happening.

That is not to say I don't cry. I actually tear up somewhat regularly - but not predictably. I continually get caught off guard emotionally. I will be going along, happily minding my own business when something in a movie, or a song, or a conversation, or even in nature, will hook me and before I know what is happening tears are streaming down my face. It happened a couple of weeks ago, in our worship service. At exactly the same place in two of our three our worship gatherings, I was overcome by emotion. Didn't see it coming either time and I stood there and heaved for a good three minutes. I am always grateful for that experience, of being reminded that my heart beats with an intelligence and awareness that my conscious mind is not in control of...

A couple weeks ago I was in an informal meeting when someone was sharing personally and in the midst of the exchange, they were overwhelmed with emotion and began to cry. I could tell that this didn't happen often, nor was this person comfortable with the fact that it was happening in the context we were in. For me, however, it felt holy. I was reminded of a passage from Frederick Buechner that I first read when I was around 23 years old. It made a huge impression on me and I have carried it around ever since.

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next."

The Liberating Influence of Beauty

I am currently in Sydney, Australia, speaking at a leadership conference at Morling College. I left Kansas City on Thursday, arrived early Saturday morning, and will return home on Sunday, May 10. I think I am mostly free of jet-lag...

I am listening to another of the speakers right now, and like usual, I have to do something else simultaneously in order to focus. So I've been doing some reading, and found this marvelous quote from Albert Einstein.

"Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the Spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which you belong."

Last week I was at the Q conference in Austin, Texas, and felt like that is precisely what I was able to do - to learn for my own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which I belong. I hope to get some time to reflect on this blog what I found to be particularly compelling.

Flying with Wi-Fi on My Way to Q

Well, this is a first. I am flying between Dallas and Austin right now. The flight attendant just came on and informed us that this is a wi-fi enabled flight. So I am posting from a Typepad App on my iPhone. Very cool.

I going to Austin to present at Q - a conference modeled after TED. Speakers include artists, scientists, business leaders, cultural icons, and faith leaders. The format is an 18 minute presentation. There will be a few 36 minute presentations as well. I will do a 36 minute presentation tomorrow titled, "Revisiting the Gospel." I'm excited to be at Q. If you interested, google Q Conference Austin to learn more and see a complete list of presenters and topics. You can also watch select presentations from previous events.

The Remaking of Reality

We talked in worship yesterday of the resurrection, of how the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead remakes reality. It is astonishing.

I am reading through Ron Martoia's fantastic book, Transformational Architecture: Reshaping Our Lives as Narrative. In it, he quotes C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity.

"[God] said (in the Bible) that we were 'gods' and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him - for we can prevent Him, if we choose - He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for."

This is the astonishing power of the God that was at work in raising Christ from the dead and is now at work in us, too. Or as Paul wrote to the church in Rome:

"It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's." (The Message)

Do we believe this?

Two Nights Out

I went out two nights in-a-row this week - not something that happens much around my house...

On Tuesday night, Mimi and I joined some friends at the Crosstown Station to see the band Oriole Post, who opened for Oakhurst (wow). Oriole Post (different link) is fronted by Rachel Bonar, she of the angelic voice, who can be heard throughout the JW record and is often seen and heard leading worship for our community.

Oriole Post was absolutely fantastic. They play self-described, "folky hill music that you want to sing along and break your heart to." Indeed. If you go to their myspace page (first link), you can hear a little bit of their music - though I believe what you will find there is what Rachel recorded herself, singing into Garage Band on her MacBook. The full sound of the band includes stand-up bass (Roger), mandolin (Seth), percussion (Bill), violin (Michaela), and backing vocals (Michelle), and the good news is that the full band is currently in the studio at Jacob's Well recording a 12 song record with Mike Crawford. See pics below (and click to embiggen).

        

      

     

Night two? I received an email yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon from Corby Pons from Disney Studios. Kind of random, but I generally like random - especially when it involves invitations to movie screenings. He invited me to a screening of a new film called Earth, the first film Disney Nature is releasing from the Planet Earth series. Here's how he described it:

"Earth is the most captivating and compelling footage of life on earth ever recorded and is regarded as a cinematography break-through as it follows three animal families from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans over a five-year odyssey. It is 'not' political or an agenda film. Earth captures images we have never before seen in ways we never before imagined. The movie is narrated by the incomparable James Earl Jones. The first movie from Disney Nature, Earth will provide families a total immersive experience into the wild wonders of God's creation."

So, I took my 12-year-old daughter with me to a packed AMC theater for a 7:00 p.m. screening. And I pretty much agree with his description. The footage and cinematography were breath-taking. It was 'not' a political or agenda film. It was an immersive experience for my family (at least the part of my family that was able to go with me - my youngest came down with the flu and was bummed to be left at home) that we really enjoyed. I would have loved to see this film in IMAX. Even so, you definitely get a sense of the scope and grandeur of God's creation, as well as its fragility and resilience.

I think Corby is working to promote the film among people of faith, many of whom are, for the first time, beginning to see stewardship of creation as part of faithful discipleship. What a good thing. Towards that end, I recommend it highly. There is something so good and so humbling to regularly be reminded of the scope and grandeur of God's creation - particularly as it relates to the biblical narrative and that God's plan is for the salvation and restoration of all things - including creation. As the Apostle Paul writes in the New Testament letter of Romans, "...for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up the present time."

The film will be released on Earth Day next week. And by the way, I sat in front of the Kansas City Star's film critic Robert Butler. When he posts his review, I'll link to it. Also, if you do go see it, stick around for the credits. They include footage of the filmmakers going to various and, at times, extreme lengths to capture creatures in the wild - the most amusing is a film rig that is basically two lawn chairs tied to a hot-air balloon flying at low-levels over the African savannah - comedy (and pain) ensues. Check out the trailer below.

Imaginations Need Food

Have you ever been to Powell's Books in Portland? If so, then I don't need to say anymore about it. You. Just. Know.

But if not...well, I can't explain it. You'll have to trust me...and then make a pilgrimage of your own someday.

In the meantime, I just stumbled onto their online newsletter/blog and a wonderful post from children's fiction author N.D. Wilson. It is not a long post, and it is definitely worth your time - especially if you are any kind of lover of stories; especially if you have kids and they beg you to read them just one more story...

Here is a great quote from Wilson about why he writes:

"I am regularly asked why I write stories for children. The easy answer? I'm childish. But to be honest, I have no intention of limiting myself to children's stories. At this phase of my life, however, they are the most important stories I can tell. I have children, I love children, and imaginations need food. The world is big. The world is wonderful. But it is also terrifying. It is an ocean full of paper boats. For many children, the only nobility, the only joy, the only strength and sacrifice that they see firsthand comes in fiction. Even when children have plenty of joy in their lives, good stories reinforce it. As long as I'm dealing in honesty, I may as well admit that I have been more influenced (as a person) by my childhood readings of Tolkien and Lewis than I have been by any philosophers I read in college and grad school. The events and characters in Narnia and Middle Earth shaped my ideals, my dreams, my goals. Kant just annoyed me."

And as long as I'm dealing in honesty, well - then me, too. My childhood readings of Tolkien and Lewis - especially Tolkien - have continued into my childish adulthood and they have influenced me more than anything else I have read. In fact, I'm currently reading The Hobbit to my youngest, finishing up The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the 14th time (Aragorn has just emerged from the paths of the dead, btw), and taking a leisurely stroll through The Tolkien Reader, particularly the essay "On Fairy Stories." In that sense, I never want to grow up. More, I want my children to know and love these worlds (that of Middle-Earth and Narnia) as they were described in words by Tolkien and Lewis, not just as they were filmed by Jackson and Adamson.

What worlds do you live in? To what fictional authors do you return again and again?

Imagination & Seeing

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain

"This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not understand.'" - Jesus of Nazareth, quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, in Matthew 13:13.

What do you think? Has Twain captured the essence of what Jesus is saying?

(ht: Tash McGill on the Twain quote)

Hope Springs Eternal

How fitting that the Kansas City Royals begin their 2009 season during Holy Week. May the Royals of my childhood be resurrected this season. As of right now, they are undefeated. Go Royals!

Here's hoping...

Is Torture a Sin? Or, "Who Would Jesus Torture?"

As we approach Easter Sunday, we commemorate and celebrate the resurrection of Christ. However, Easter Sunday only comes after we solemnly observe Good Friday, the day when Christ was tortured and executed at the hands of sinful humanity. At the beginning of this Holy Week, I am thinking about the current conversation that is happening in our culture about the Bush administration and the use of torture as a means of getting information for our "security." I am also thinking about our entertainment - how a highly rated show like "24" stirs the blood as it asks what is justifiable treatment of "enemies" so that a community might be made secure?

Thoughtful Christians have been dialoging about issues related to life and the last election, particularly abortion. Most Christians I know are incredibly concerned about what impact the Obama administration will have on the reality of abortion in our country. Or if not incredibly concerned, then at least aware and paying attention (and wondering what they might do). And this is as it should be. As followers of the God who gives life, this conversation is more than important.

However, life is more than what happens in the womb, though it is certainly that, too. Can Christians ever justify torturing someone made in the image of God, especially when the one we worship as God refused to defend himself or countenance violence for his own security? As the justice department continues to investigate the way in which the last administration circumvented the law to extract information, I am wondering about whether Christians will eventually express the same kind of outrage that is normative in discussion about abortion. If not, why not? And make no mistake, the United States tortured. A recently leaked report from the Red Cross is clear about that.

Part of what prompts this is an article I read this morning by Steve Waldman, the editor-in-chief of beliefnet. The article is titled, "Why Didn't Ashcroft - the Christian - Stop The Torture?" Please take some time to read Waldman's article. Then, if you are inclined, please share how you believe Christians should be responding to this. Did Ashcroft, as the Attorney-General and also a devout Christian, have a responsibility to protest this administration's policies in the same way that he has been committed to the advocating for life for unborn fetuses?

Please do not misunderstand me here: I am not setting abortion against torture or vice-versa. I am proposing that both are issues that Christ-followers should be aware of and concerned about and even engaged with as an outflow of discipleship. What that looks like is uncertain, and I am not here to propose something at this time. I am inviting discussion about a discrepancy. Thoughtful and active Christians are rightly concerned about Obama administration policy related to the abortion of fetuses. Are thoughtful and active Christians also equally concerned about Bush administration policy related to the torture of living human beings?

I expect, as always, civil conversation and dialogue on this issue. I will be an equal opportunity deleter of comments that I deem to be out-of-bounds in spirit or content.

Patagonia/Jeremy Collins Slideshow

          

My friend Jeremy Collins, whose illustration graces the banner on this blog (and the cover of my book), just returned from a three-week climbing adventure in South America. Jeremy traveled to Patagonia with his brother, and there met up with the North Face climbing team and a film crew from National Geographic (they were there filming someone else, but I think Jeremy got some time in with them). He was there to attempt an ascent of Mount Fitz Roy, to establish a new route on a smaller peak, and to draw every day that he wasn't climbing. What a trip.

If you are interested in hearing about the trip and seeing a slide show, Jeremy will be giving a presentation tomorrow night (Tuesday, April 7) at 8:00 p.m. at the North Face store on the Plaza in Kansas City. As this is Holy Week, we will be hosting the final Lenten Table on Lent at the same time, and so I will not be able to attend. However, Jeremy has said that he would be willing to do the same presentation at JW at a later date. If you can make his talk, I'd highly recommend it.

Here is a short video from his time in South America. Breath-taking. Read a couple of posts from his trip on his blog: here and here.

a walk from Jeremy Collins on Vimeo.

The Poor in Spirit

I am doing some studying/message preparation this afternoon. I have already mentioned that Jeff Cook's book, Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, has been a really wonderful resource for me through the series. At one point in the reading, Cook references the band Seether, who I didn't know, and a music video that they did for their song, "Fine Again."

,

Have you seen that before? What a compelling illustration of sin, of what is deadly, of what is hidden, of what separates us from ourselves, one another, from our world, and ultimately from God.

In the midst of that reality, Jesus declares, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God." Huh? It seems like those who are poor in spirit only have that, a poor spirit and little else. What comfort is that?

Here is what Cook has to say:

"Jesus alone shows us that our condition is not hopeless. Just as Socrates knew that the only ones who are wise are those who know they are fools, so too Jesus shows us that the only ones who are complete are those who know they are falling apart. Heaven is occupied not by those who think they have it all together. Heaven is the refuge of the infirm and mending..."

Cook continues:

"Being poor in spirit is like being part of an AA meeting where all the participants confess openly that their lives have become unmanageable. Poverty in spirit is a conversation over coffee in which tears and regrets and inadequacies cover the table. Poverty in spirit is no longer keeping the toxic things bottled up within - or merely written on signs that read, 'I disgust myself,' or 'I have shallow, unrealistic dreams.' It is ripping the tape from my mouth and confessing that I am in desperate need, that things inside me are tragically out of order and I lack the life I ought to have. Those who know they are poor in spirit are blessed because they alone know they need help - and any step toward help must be a step toward community."

Then bringing it all together, he declares that those who declare their spiritual poverty experience heaven in the real relationship that results from no longer denying need - for God and for one another.

"Here in heaven we suffer and mend together. Here in heaven the language we speak assumes that you and I are one, that we need each other, that healing comes when we exhale all the toxic things within us by confessing them. Total exposure is not a requirement to enjoy heaven; total exposure is what enjoying heaven looks like."

Amen, and thank you, Jeff.

Pleasure vs. Joy

A couple of people have asked me for the Thomas Merton quote from Sunday's message on the deadly sin of Sloth. Here it is:

"Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and spiritual joy you have not yet begun to live."

Musical Odds and Ends

I am home with the flu. Ugh. I have not been sick since last fall, and I have not missed it.

So I am laying low. And bored as I am, I realized that I have a few little musical things floating around in my head and on my screen that I thought I would share. It's that, or work on my taxes...

Mark Wampler has written a nice, concise review of the new U2 record, No Line on the Horizon. He was able to identify and articulate a few attributes of the record that I had felt but couldn't name. Jury is still out for me on it - at least as it compares to the rest of the U2 canon - but I am listening to it once or twice a week.

If you read my blog you know that I often mention the blog, Take-Away Shows: musicians in unlikely environments in and around Paris performing impromptu concerts for whoever happens to be within earshot - all filmed beautifully by Vincent Moon. If you read my blog you also know how much I love Sigur Ros, the atmospheric and wildly creative band from Iceland. Guess what? Last week's entry on the Take-Away show blog? Sigur Ros. Two wonderful worlds colliding. See "Vid Spilum Endalaust" here.

Finally, last week I shared the new trailer for film version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are . The Arcade Fire song, "Wake Up" provides the music for said trailer. A group of us where standing around before worship on Sunday talking and the trailer and Arcade Fire's musical contribution came up. Tim Bridgham mentioned that he wasn't sure if the movie looked that great on its own or if it just looked so good because everything looks better accompanied by the music of The Arcade Fire. He then emailed me an edited version of the movie trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 with "Wake Up" dubbed in over the original music, and I have to say, he might be onto something. And if you are unsure, then rewatch the Where the Wild Things Are trailer with the original TMNT2 music.

[UPDATE - Okay, I just realized that when the embedded videos are done playing, the video viewer suggests videos not wholly appropriate - sorry about that. If you want to see them, you can do so here]

By the way, for those keeping score at home, following the singing of the benediction at worship, Thomas Mueller and Tim Bridgham cued up and played "Wake Up" in the sanctuary - a fitting anthem on a Sunday when the topic was sloth, don't you think? Here's a few of the lyrics:

Somethin' filled up
my heart with nothin',
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I'm older,
my heart's colder,
and I can see that it's a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

A Few "End of the Season" Reflections

Alas, the Kansas University Jayhawks basketball season came to an end last night.

After the game, I had that sad, heart-sick feeling realizing that the season was over, that I might not see some of these players in a Jayhawk uniform again, that I would be waiting a long-time to see my favorite team to play again. Then I realized that I had felt this way before, but not in awhile...

I have been a Jayhawk fan since 1987, when I enrolled at KU as a freshmen. That, by the way, was Danny Manning's senior year - the same year we won the 1988 national championship against Oklahoma. Every year after that blissful experience, I got used to the Jayhawks falling short, of ending the season too soon. Some of those teams truly broke my heart - read this post to see what I am talking about. Then last year, exactly twenty years after "Danny and the Miracles" won the last KU national title, we won it again against Memphis. What a game. No broken-heart, no untapped potential, a season that ended, not wistfully, or tragically, but joyfully, with promise realized.

After the Jayhawks got knocked out of the tournament in their "Sweet Sixteen" match-up again Michigan State last night, I came to the realization that I was feeling an emotion that I had had plenty of experience with - but none of in the last year: BECAUSE WE ARE THE DEFENDING NATIONAL CHAMPS. So, I am content. Especially when I read Martin Manley's entry on last night's game from the KC Star sports blog, Upon Further Review. A few choice highlights from his post:

"A 60-55 lead with 3:10 left deteriorated into to 60-63 deficit (0-8 anti-run) and the rest is history. So, ends the somewhat unlikely 27-win season for the Jayhawks. I doubt if many expected 27 victories (I predicted 24) or coming this close to the Elite Eight. Still, once you get near, you hate to see it end. Even so, who believed we would have beaten Louisville anyway? Not me."

I had KU beating MSU, then losing to Louisville in the "Elite Eight." Manley goes on to talk about the fact that KU lost five starters to the NBA draft. He writes the following and includes a interesting chart detailing how each team fared the year after they won the national title.

"Shown below are the eight teams in history who lost 4 or 5 players to the NBA draft, their record the year after, and their finish in the tournament. Only one team went farther in the tournament and KU was the best of the three teams that lost five players to the draft."

1991	UNLV	4	26-2	Probation
1996	Kentucky	4	35-5	NCAA Runner-up
1999	Duke	4	29-5	Sweet 16
2001	Arizona	4	24-10	Sweet 16
2005	N Carolina	4	24-9	Round of 32
2006	Connecticut	5	17-14	No tournament
2007	Florida	5	24-12	No tournament
2008	Kansas	5	27-8	Sweet 16

So that is incredible and obviously the Jayhawk's team performance is to be commended. I am happy with our season as Big 12 regular season champions. And to be honest, I am really excited to watch and cheer for Missouri and Oklahoma as they continue in the tournament. What a game both those teams played! So, as Manley says, and I agree:

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk! Go KU!

Rock Chalk, Tigers! Go MU!

Rock Chalk, Sooners! Go OU!

Here's to a BIG 12 National Champion two years in-a-row!

Have You Seen This?

I loved this book when I was a child. I love this first trailer for the Spike Jonze directed version of Where the Wild Things Are - complete with "Wake Up," the fantastic Arcade Fire song - check this amazing version of the same song. I can't wait to see this. Enjoy.

Brian Hull is a friend of mine who, along with his family, was a part of the community of Jacob's Well. I say "was," but I still consider the Hulls as part of the community even though they recently moved out of Kansas City so that Brian could take position teaching at a seminary. I received an email from Brian a couple of days ago checking in and sharing a quote that has been helpful and moving to him. When I read it, my eyes filled with tears.

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!

You have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!

I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.

I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.

No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.

And where should I go?

This quote comes from Carlo Carretto and is found in his book, The God Who Comes.

Anyone who has sought to live out their life of faith in the midst of a particular community, who has sought to be a Jesus-person with other Jesus-people, knows both the highs and the lows of true, as opposed to idealized, community. I think this reality is what underpins what Carretto has written.

Reading Carretto here reminds me of both the joys and costs of discipleship. As I read and re-read this quote, I find that the divine tension that he describes to be incredibly compelling. Some might read it and be discouraged by the first and very human halves of each of his propositions. Many people allow themselves to be taken out of play by such things. Rather than discouraging me, though, I find that I am pulled forward by the beauty and promise of the second, divine half of the equation. And let me also say I am stirred not in spite of the limitations of the first-half statements but because it is God who enters those very limited, human, and broken places to claim, transform, and make them holy. It is this hope and reality that ignites and fuels my desire to be bound again and again to God, to Christ, and to his bride, the church - a broken, messy, beautiful, glorious Church/church filled with broken, messy, beautiful, and glorious people.

My friend and YouthFront CEO, Mike King (also a JW elder) has written a great post on his blog about the use of fear as a means of raising money to fund youth ministry, among many other things. Mike has worked with youth and within youth culture for over 30 years. Take a minute and read his post. It is very thoughtful, wise, and instructive. Here is the opening salvo:

"Unfortunately, one of the most successful strategies for funding youth ministry involves demonizing young people. This process involves painting a picture using statistics, stories, and alarmist scare tactics in order to convince adults to give money to help reach the youth culture because 'it's never been worse.' This strategy works for fund-raising, but I don't think this posture of viewing teenagers as the most evil demographic group creates an environment that results in genuine salvation and the biblical Christian formation of young people as disciples of Jesus Christ."

Due to our vacation last week and Monday morning's early departure, I didn't get to follow up with some further reflections from the message on Sunday. I had talked about greed, the third sin in our Lenten series on the seven deadly sins.  

Towards the end of the message I made the comment that one of the reasons we give money to the poor and to the church is because it lessens the power that Mammon (the spiritual entity we worship when greed is at work) has on us. Greed is so much about possession - having possessions, possessing our possessions, being possessed by our possessions. Gratitude and generosity effects in us a declaration of independence, of defiance and rebellion against the fear and idolatry that greed leverages in our lives. Gratitude and generosity act to exorcise the false god Mammon, reminding us that all we have is the blessing of a gracious and generous God. When that becomes our orientation, we stop seeing giving as sacrifice or a loss to our bottom line and see it instead as a way to joyfully participate in the life of God as He himself lives it - graciously and generously self-giving.

Following the worship gathering Sunday night, I returned to my office and found that someone had placed a note in my door. On the 3x5 card, there was written a wonderful quote from George MacDonald that I would like to share with you. While it doesn't address greed specifically, it gets at the heart of what I was trying to communicate. Thanks to whoever left this for me.

"Love of thy neighbor is the only way out of the dungeon of self."

Yes.

Isn't She Lovely?

Brian Hull is a friend of mine who, along with his family, was a part of the community of Jacob's Well. I say "was," but I still consider the Hulls as part of the community even though they recently moved out of Kansas City so that Brian could take position teaching at a seminary. I received an email from Brian a couple of days ago checking in and sharing a quote that has been helpful and moving to him. When I read it, my eyes filled with tears.

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!

You have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!

I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.

I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.

No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.

And where should I go?

This quote comes from Carlo Carretto and is found in his book, The God Who Comes.

Anyone who has sought to live out their life of faith in the midst of a particular community, who has sought to be a Jesus-person with other Jesus-people, knows both the highs and the lows of true, as opposed to idealized, community. I think this reality is what underpins what Carretto has written.

Reading Carretto here reminds me of both the joys and costs of discipleship. As I read and re-read this quote, I find that the divine tension that he describes to be incredibly compelling. Some might read it and be discouraged by the first and very human halves of each of his propositions. Many people allow themselves to be taken out of play by such things. Rather than discouraging me, though, I find that I am pulled forward by the beauty and promise of the second, divine half of the equation. And let me also say I am stirred not in spite of the limitations of the first-half statements but because it is God who enters those very limited, human, and broken places to claim, transform, and make them holy. It is this hope and reality that ignites and fuels my desire to be bound again and again to God, to Christ, and to his bride, the church - a broken, messy, beautiful, glorious Church/church filled with broken, messy, beautiful, and glorious people.

The Demonization of Teenagers

My friend and YouthFront CEO, Mike King (also a JW elder) has written a great post on his blog about the use of fear as a means of raising money to fund youth ministry, among many other things. Mike has worked with youth and within youth culture for over 30 years. Take a minute and read his post. It is very thoughtful, wise, and instructive. Here is the opening salvo:

"Unfortunately, one of the most successful strategies for funding youth ministry involves demonizing young people. This process involves painting a picture using statistics, stories, and alarmist scare tactics in order to convince adults to give money to help reach the youth culture because 'it's never been worse.' This strategy works for fund-raising, but I don't think this posture of viewing teenagers as the most evil demographic group creates an environment that results in genuine salvation and the biblical Christian formation of young people as disciples of Jesus Christ."

Greed and George MacDonald

Due to our vacation last week and Monday morning's early departure, I didn't get to follow up with some further reflections from the message on Sunday. I had talked about greed, the third sin in our Lenten series on the seven deadly sins.  

Towards the end of the message I made the comment that one of the reasons we give money to the poor and to the church is because it lessens the power that Mammon (the spiritual entity we worship when greed is at work) has on us. Greed is so much about possession - having possessions, possessing our possessions, being possessed by our possessions. Gratitude and generosity effects in us a declaration of independence, of defiance and rebellion against the fear and idolatry that greed leverages in our lives. Gratitude and generosity act to exorcise the false god Mammon, reminding us that all we have is the blessing of a gracious and generous God. When that becomes our orientation, we stop seeing giving as sacrifice or a loss to our bottom line and see it instead as a way to joyfully participate in the life of God as He himself lives it - graciously and generously self-giving.

Following the worship gathering Sunday night, I returned to my office and found that someone had placed a note in my door. On the 3x5 card, there was written a wonderful quote from George MacDonald that I would like to share with you. While it doesn't address greed specifically, it gets at the heart of what I was trying to communicate. Thanks to whoever left this for me.

"Love of thy neighbor is the only way out of the dungeon of self."

Yes.