Tim Keel's Blog

some thoughts on writing

Last night at our gathering I talked about nurturing one's spiritual life (download file), about accessing the resources that God makes available to us for the purpose of growing more and more into the likeness of Christ.

I'm learning a lot about that right now. Writing has always been one avenue that helps me to become more human and more available to God. But it's taken me awhile to see it as a spiritual practice. Maybe it's because I haven't seen my spiritual life as a humanizing endeavor but a divinization ramp.

It 's human to take time to examine what's going on inside. It's also human to not like what we find and hide it away again in favor of some more "spiritual" and external endeavor. Why is it so often that we believe for something to be spiritually valid or meritorious, it has to be elevated and painful?

The picture above is Thomas Merton, a trappist monk and one of my heroes. This man was born to write. He was prolific in a way that is hard to grasp. For the last five or six years, his writing has been a constant companion to me and while I like his thought and prose, it is his journals that speak into my life. Merton, however, had a pretty tenuous relationship with his writing. He wanted solitude.

When Merton went into seclusion, leaving the world for the cloister of the monastery, I think he thought he was leaving himself behind. He didn't. He followed himself there. In his mind, he wanted nothing more to do with writing. Fortunately, monks practice obedience, one of their sacred vows. His superiors saw in him God's spark manifested through the written word. So every day, under obedience, he sat down at his typewriter and wrote. Then he would hand everything over, surrendering his thoughts and words, his doubt and his belief, his life, to people he trusted to speak to him as God would.

Merton admits, "I am finding myself forced to admit that my lamentations about my writing job have been foolish. At the moment, the writing is the one thing that gives me access to some real silence and solitude. Also I find that it helps me to pray, because when I pause at my work I find that the mirror inside me is surprisingly deep and clean and serene and God shines there and is immediately found, without hunting, as if he had come close to me while I was writing and I had not observed His coming. And this, I think, should be the cause of great joy, and to me it is." (The Sign of Jonas, p. 207)

This is encouraging to me.

hidden thingies...

I'm excited about the website we are slowly putting together...

sco (Scott Raymond) and Deanne Pearson are the chief engineers behind this effort and they are doing a great job trying to make this site a place where our vision for community is extended. Some of the things that are there can't be navigated from the main site yet but are hidden. One of these is a creative writing index.

The creativity and generosity of people in our church is often stunning to me...sharing passions, skills, resources, ideas, lives. Towards that end, sco has created a link that indexes the different people in our community that are keeping "blogs" (web + log = blog), that is, sharing their ideas and lives through writing. So far there are about five of us. Check it out: JW Blog Index. It lists the 15 or 20 most recent entries in the JW blog ring.

because you're mine...

Last week I was listening to the radio and heard a new Johnny Cash song called, "Hurt." Actually it's a Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash has covered. It is a devastating song, emotional in way that kind of leaves you gasping.

The entire effect is magnified when you see the video. Daniel King told me about it last night at dinner after church, then sent me a link where you can watch the video. Here are some of his reactions to this piece of art:

"It is raw -- real...His grandfather-like wisdom is very powerful.� Not only can you see pain in his eyes -- personal demons, self-inflicted entrapment, abandonment, regret -- You can hear it with every gritty note.�In the video, I liked how he tied in everything -- music, fame, mistakes, love, family, spirituality, regret -- life. His voice, that voice, hauntingly real, hauntingly hurt."�

To watch the video, hit this link: CMT Video.com

Message Resources: 02/16/03

I'm reposting the article I used to open the discussion in this week's message. In fact I came across a couple of pieces of writing that are compelling and challenging.

The first article asks the question of why evangelicals, as a group, are considered some of the most unliked people in America. The article is called "Everybody Hates Us".

Second is a link to the Don Hudson article I read from tonight, "The Glory of His Discontent". He shares an experience of talking to a man who, while experiencing great pain and tragedy in his life, never seems to face the suffering in his story in any kind of meaningful way. In fact, I've had several conversations with people struggling with a kind of meaningless "God" talk...how do we talk about pain in a way that is meaningful and redemptive? To quote Hudson, "In so many ways, this man cannot tell a true story because he has never truly engaged the conflicts and questions of his life. Christianity has become for him a system of dismissing doubt rather than embracing paradox."

The third resource really worth spending some time with is a collection of notes a friend put together after being at a conference with Dallas Willard and Brian McLaren. Church and Culture Overview:Download file

Finally, a somewhat fun reality check, tempering our expectations and helping us to deal with our limitations and what's realistic to expect from a goofy and broken group of people banded together around a crucified Savior...it's called "How to Find a Church"

is there anything on tv more fun to watch than...

...Trading Spaces? It's Saturday and that means sneaking away to watch a few episodes of my favorite home improvement show.

I justify this because it helps me to get things done around the house...right, Mimi?

Now that I think about it, what if we did "Trading Churches"? We could take over, say, Solomon's Porch, a sister church in Minneapolis, and they could have our church, $2000, 48 hours and we could...

...okay, well, maybe not.

meditations on a used car

I don't like cars. The fact that I spent $437.00 getting my car fixed on Thursday has something to do with it. Maybe I feel like if I were more of a man I'd do all this myself. Fat chance. The hydraulic system in the clutch was shot. In fact I had to pay $40 to get the thing towed to the mechanic's shop (Duke & Bob's, by the way - I swear by them). When they put it on the lift turns out it had no brakes either. That's probably not good.

I drive a 1990 Geo Prizm. The car is actually a composite creation: the engine is made by Toyota and the body is General Motors. Any guess on which parts of the car are in good shape and which are dumpy?

This car was my wife's college graduation present, a cute little silver hatchback. Now she drives a minivan that could compete in Daytona. I've never had a new car, or a car I've ever really been excited about driving for that matter and of all the things I would like new, a car isn't one of them. So I don't mind. Well, mostly...

I've always thought cars are functional, point "a" to point "b" machines (in fact, I'd love to use public transportation if I could swing it - I actually tried for a month a couple of years ago and enjoyed bus culture...that's another topic). But when the Geo broke down this time I actually considered whether I ought to fix it or take the new used car path. Sometimes the thought of buying a new car, one that I picked out, reflects my personality, etc., appeals to me. What's more my kids are getting older and the fabric hanging off the ceiling, detached door handles, broken window rollers, and marginal radio are becoming something of an embarassment to them. Why are cars such a big deal in America? While I deliberated all this it sat in front of my house for two weeks and I drove an extra car my father-in-law has. He has a knack for cars.

So you already know I didn't buy a new car. I fixed the old one, which I've heard is the cheapest and most economically sound way to go. In the end though, it wasn't merely the fiscal considerations that kept me in my Geo, it was the sentimental ones. I decided I like my car. Over twelve years of marriage it has become mine. It has a personality. And when it runs I like to drive it (it seems I'm not alone: 1990 Geo survey). One time a group of people from our church had my three-year cracked windshield replaced while I was out of town. That alone makes it worth keeping.

So while I don't totally understand why a person becomes attached to a machine, and a poorly running one at that, I'm nevertheless so attached. You find something good and you stick with it, come what may.

a storm in kc

I love rain. Blue sky or clouds with rain? Give me rain everytime. There's something about weather that gets me.

My mom just called. She and my step-dad went downtown for a Valentine's day meal at the City Tavern. Turns out it rained two inches in an hour. The bottoms of Kansas City don't do well with that kind of water influx. Waiters and waitresses were mopping water, trying to keep the flooded parking lot out of the restaurant. Twelve cars filled up and were totalled. All in an hour...

I was sitting at home enjoying the noise and the damp and musty smell of rain.

Another Good Resource on War

Here's a web-site that has a number of good resources about war and other concepts, ideas, practices related to faith, post-modernity, and the world...

Faithmaps

How `bout those uniforms

As a sports fan, I normally don't gloat, last weeks post re: Missouri notwithstanding. Now, even though KU beat KSU yesterday, I am more interested in hearing from K-State fans about those stunning uniforms. Did KSU recently acquire the artist formerly known as Prince as a fashion consultant?

A Challenging Read

This is a fourth generation posting...I read this at Rudy Carrasco's blog who read it at Jordon Cooper's blog who somehow found this article...it seems a survey has just been done in America seeking to discover who are the most unliked people in the nation. After the IRS and serial killers it appears that evangelical Christians are the most disliked people around...a must read