Tim Keel's Blog

Hitting the Road

I'm off for a couple days of study leave at Conception Abbey. It's that time of the Spring where I go away for a couple of days to be alone, plan, read, pray, walk, sleep, listen...live in a different rhythm.

Peace and blessings...be back soon.

P.S. Seriously, read that article I posted below!

A Challenging Window into Islam

Doug Pagitt sent this article around to a few friends to read. It is by a reporter for the New York Times (I think) named Paul Berman. In it he peers beneath the simplistic answers offered in the wake of 9/11 and offers some interesting philosophical and historical commentary that I haven't heard anywhere else. It's a 14 page article, so settle in. Well-worth your time, though.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

Re-urbanization

Driving into the office this morning I heard a report on KCUR (89.3FM) about the amount of development that is beginning to happen in downtown Kansas City and the surrounding environs. This time around it sounds as if there is a great deal of unity around how space ought to be appropriated. A lot of the development is happening around where the new performing arts center is going to be, just south of Bartle Hall.

After church last night a couple of us went to dinner and one of the people shared a story about looking at a little lot on Cherry south of downtown, a lot that under normal circumstances would fetch no more than $4000. It went for an outstanding $31,000. He said that area around Gillham, down by Crown Center is hot and this developer would have spent whatever it took to get the land.

City planners have been trying to re-think how cities grow and expand without eviscerating their urban cores. According to the Sierra Club, Kansas City is quickly becoming one of the worst sprawl cities around. At the same time, when urban property gets "hot," how does it develop in a way that doesn't dislocate the poor? I think of the perfectly planned communities that are emerging in an attempt to re-integrate life, geography, work, etc. Is it possible to do this, to remove all unpleasantness from our line of sight? Or is that why re-urbanization is such an emerging trend?

I think this subject is intriguing and important for our community, especially in light of the discussion we began last night, one aspect of which was the idea of living in proximity to one another.

41 hours and counting...

I truly do not understand how single parents do it. It is beyond me.

Mimi went to Chicago this weekend with 12 other women for a much needed and much deserved break. I, on the other hand, have been doing the proverbial "holding down of the fort." I've got great kids who are helpful, do what I ask, get along fairly well, but...I'm beat.

I put my kids to bed, then fell asleep beside them at 9:00 p.m. This is called a reality check: my wife is amazing. Single parents are amazing. Given the fact that I travel often and my wife does this without blinking everyday of her life, I am forced to admit that I (and I mean this with all sincerity) am just a pastor.

Wow, I think I just found syrup on my laptop screen.

"and I am a material girl..."

I'm driving with my six year-old daughter Saturday afternoon, pulling up to the Price Chopper in Brookside. All of the sudden a fire-engine comes busting loudly out of the parking lot. We cover our ears as it races by.

I can tell she is thinking, and after a few seconds Annie looks at me and says, "I don't believe in fires."

Really? Okay.

"Why not?"

"I've never seen one."

Oh. I think she means a house on fire. Seems reasonable, I guess. She's a hard nut, a real budding empiricist.

"Well, sweetheart, fires are real..."

Then without really acknowledging my comment she asks, "How does Santa get down the chimney without getting dirty?"

"Magic," I reply.

"Yeah," she says, "I don't believe in that either."

Sand and space and soul

I've really been loving Bruce Feiler's book, Walking the Bible. This most recent chapter I read had him in the desert, living among Bedouins of the Sinai, retracing the path the Israelites took from Egypt to the promised land. One of the things he asserts is that the desert was not simply a place of punishment but a place of preparation and refinement.

He writes, "Spend enough time in the desert, and you begin to see that nothing is quite what it seems to be. Water becomes wisdom. Food becomes salvation. And sandstorms become poetry. Everything, in other words, becomes grist for allegory. As Moses tells the Israelites near the end of their journey: 'Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past 40 years, that he might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts.' Today, almost three thousand years since those words were written, the appeal of the desert remains the same. By its sheer demands - thirst, hunger, misery - it asks a simple question: 'What do you believe?' Or put another way, 'In what do you believe?'" [pp. 278-279]

Our family is in the midst of planning our summer vacation, which I'm really looking forward to. We need it. But in reading Feiler's words I realize a vacation, by itself, isn't enough. I don't simply want a vacation, time that allows me to rest in a position of comfort and leisure, but a pilgrimage, a going home (to a place I may or may not know) where my soul is scraped by deprivation; a place where all the things that allow me to hide, not merely from others or God for that matter, but from myself, are stripped away.

Heremas.

I've never seen the desert. When we lived in Colorado I always wanted to make it to Great Sand Dunes National Park, but never did. We always opted for the mountains. The idea that geography influences the soul is alien to us, I think, unless in the category of inspiration. But what about deprivation, desolation, and preparation? These are realities, locations, in my inner spiritual landscapes, too.

"Many persons, ordained or not, live in a fairly constant state of noise, with their unresolved past and the uncertain present breaking in on them...Thomas Merton, the fascinating Cistercian monk whose writings continue to increase in popularity, found the busy life of a Trappist very disconcerting. Despite the fact that speaking is severely curtailed in a Cistercian monastery, he found the place incredibly noisy. For many years he sought permission to live as a hermit on the property of the monastery. He needed the quiet that he might listen. Too frequently we do not understand the hermit's discipline, a discipline that needs to be ours in spirit, if not in fact." Urban T. Holmes III

He's Gone

Goodbye Coach Williams.

I wish you could have left in a way that didn't decimate our program, what was your program, built with care and character for more than a decade. What can you do? Be grateful, I suppose.

Thanks for 15 great years.

Have you been paying attention?

I was over at a breakfast this morning with some folks from my church and tried to make a quick bathroom break but I got way-laid by the shower curtain. It was a clear plastic jobby, complete with color-coded map of the world. I love maps. Could look at them forever. Maps and bathrooms. Maps in bathrooms. Not a good combination. Or, too good a combination.

So imagine my joy when I stumbled across this just a few minutes ago. I figure with all the time I've logged watching middle-eastern war coverage I ought to ace a geography quiz. And I did do pretty well. I nailed the Middle East, did about 50% on Africa, and was abysmal in the country formerly known as the U.S.S.R.

How did you do?

On my back porch tonight

All week-end long Mimi and I did yard work, with a couple of soccer games interspersed. We tore up some dead grass, laid down "soil activator" followed by some fescue grass seed. From here on out, it's water, water, water (which reminds me, I've got to go out and rotate the sprinkler).

As Mimi was out moving the water in our backyard I went out to continue a conversation we had started. The whole yard was dark except for the deck and tree right next to it, illuminated by a single bulb. The tree looked beautiful. A week ago it was all white flowers. Soon it will be only green leaves. But tonight - well, tonight it looked like a Christmas tree, green garlanded with white lights. It was luminescent in the night, a Chanticleer Pear. We planted it almost four years ago, desperate to get some shade from the afternoon sun beating into our kitchen. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford the size of tree it would have taken to block the rays so we spent what we had, got a cute tree about half the size we needed and put up blinds. And waited...

Now it's probably triple the size it was when we bought it and this may be the summer it fulfills its calling. I never know how much it's really grown until the spring. It seems dormant all winter, but the reality is it's growing, unnoticed. It's only when it flowers and fills out with leaves to I notice how big it is. "Wow. You've grown up. Glad to see you."

Our emergent gathering

We had our second Kansas City emergent cohort gathering last night. We met at McCoy's in Westport, back in the "Tobacco Room." Our first gathering was last month and 19 people showed: artists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, non-denoms, youth workers, etc. No women though. Last night we had about 40 people show up, three women. It's a start.

We had a good time. People went around and shared a bit about themselves and why they are interested in the emerging church, postmodernity, etc. It was cool to see so many connecting and building friendships. I am blessed to hang out with people who love God and are committed to the church. It was good to connect with people, talk theology.

The big downer was the air circulation system was down. There were a few of us enjoying cigars and a few pipe smokers. By 9:30 p.m., the smoke was so thick it was hard to see. Someone left and came back with a bottle of visine.

I left at 1:00 a.m. When I woke up this morning, the entire house smelled like smoke. Both floors. Mimi had been up since six with Blaise and she had a look in her eye like, "I'm not amused." I thought about leaving the offending articles on the deck. I couldn't even wear my glasses. I had to spray them down with Windex three times to get the smell off.

What is it about talking theology and smoking cigars?