Tim Keel's Blog

Amahoro Emergent/C

Tim Hartman, the chairman of the Amahoro board of directors, asked me to write a brief account of my experience as a participant in the last two Amahoro gatherings for the Emergent Village weekly e-newsletter Emergent/C. I was happy to comply and what I wrote went out this morning in this week's issue. If you don't subscribe to it, here are the opening three paragraphs with a link to the rest of the article that is also posted on the Emergent Village blog.

In May 2007, I traveled with five companions from my church in the United States to Kampala, Uganda. We journeyed there to attend the first gathering of Amahoro-Africa. We didn't know exactly what to expect. We weren't sure what we'd find. We weren't exactly clear why we were even going. What did we know? We knew that an important conversation was happening in and around Africa—and we wanted to be a part of it as both observers and participants.

Brian McLaren's book, Everything Must Change, tells the story of his relationship with an Burundian man named Claude Nikondeha. Through their conversations and subsequent friendship, a dream called Amahoro was born and eventually realized: to create a space for young African leaders to gather for relationships and connection, theological reflection, and transformation.

Just as the emerging church conversation has been a vital space for western leaders to process the many aspects of our changing landscape, so leaders in Africa have likewise needed a parallel space to process the many ways their environment has shifted and continues to shift.

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Lent Begins

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the forty day-long season of Lent. At Jacob's Well, we will begin our observation of Lent with an Ash Wednesday gathering this evening at 7:00 p.m. All are welcome. This is just the first of a number of practices that will help us to participate with Christ in his journey to the cross and beyond...

Let me take this chance to highlight a few of the other opportunities that are coming - that you might join us as we seek to engage God, ourselves, one another, the biblical narrative, and how the Spirit might be using all of those things to provoke us into greater awareness and engagement.

• Having just finished the "Encounters with Jesus" series in worship, on Sunday we will begin a new, Lenten series titled, "Deadly." Over the seven Sundays of Lent we will explore the seven deadly sins: gluttony, lust, greed, anger, sloth, envy, and pride. It might seem strange to say it, but I am really looking forward to this exploration. I guess that tells you something about me...

• One of the opportunities Lent provides is an opportunity to examine our lives and see where our appetites or our practices have gotten "out of whack." The practice of giving something up for Lent is meant to re-create a space in ourselves for God that has been eclipsed by something else - not necessarily bad, just out of proportion. This is the impulse that is at the heart of fasting. Not just fasting from, but fasting to. Beyond the giving up of something, we are inviting our community to experiment with fasting together: to observe a once per week corporate fast from Monday evening through Tuesday afternoon. That means you would miss three meals: dinner, breakfast, and lunch. Which then leads to...

• Tuesday Night Lenten Table and Sacred Space. After observing our fast, we are creating a space at Jacob's Well for people to gather together to break their fasts. We will meet every Tuesday night at 6:00 p.m. for a simple meal of soup and bread. We are providing the soup, we are asking people to bring bread. The meal will last around half-an-hour, then people will be released to engage four different "sacred spaces" throughout our building. I don't want to say much more about these spaces except that I am really excited about the chance they will give us to process and integrate all that we are encountering in Lent. Childcare is not being provided, but children are welcome to participate. Also, if families feel like their children are too young to participate, then of course feel free to come for the meal and conversation.

Like I said, I am excited and anticipating a good and full experience of God and his grace and mercy this Lenten season. I hope you will find a way of walking this sacred road, whether with us or in some other way. A quote from Henri Nouwen helps us to frame the opportunity Lent provides. We join him in his conversation with God, from Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings:

"The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death. I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, human respect, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life."

Merton Quote

"Jesus lived the ordinary life of the men of His time, in order to sanctify the ordinary lives of men of all time. If we want to be spiritual, then, let us first of all live our lives."

BBC 3: Rest - Quotes

I am falling behind in my blogging. It's been a couple of busy weeks. I am realizing that when things get tight in time, blogging is one activity that generally suffers. And you know what? I think that is a good thing. After all, we are talking about rest and our need for it, especially in the context of a society that overloads us with options and opportunities and that we perpetually accommodate.

I think in the context of the third chapter of Robert Benson's (pictured to the left) A Good Life, it is his description and diagnosis of this challenge that I find particularly helpful - and convicting.

"One's work - whether it be one's livelihood or one's ministry or one's household responsibilities or one's schooling or education - always seems to demand more of one's time, not less. And our communities - be they our family, neighbors, coworkers, or faith community - generally will take as much of our time as we are willing to give up. Sometimes they will pay us more or applaud us more, and sometimes not. But they will always take more if we let them."

They key phrase there being, "...if we let them." At least as far as it goes for me. I love this about this chapter, Benson's understanding of the unique challenges of our age and how they impact our body and soul in time - but his unwillingness to let us be victims. We are responsible for ourselves. Describing his own experience of burnout he says,

"My church life and my community life and my work life were so full and rich and productive that I nearly died from it. And by my own hand. Other than the fact that I was tired and worn and sick at heart and depleted and lost and afraid, everything was just fine. And, of course, I had no one to blame but myself - even though I tried to pin the blame on some other folks."

We have to take responsibility for ourselves. Last week I was reading in the Bible and came across to different passages where the Apostle Paul describes the responsibility that he takes for himself as a result of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and God's grace. If you have a chance look at 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and Titus 2:11-12 (both translations are TNIV, but if you get a chance read the Titus passage in the NRSV - I couldn't find it online). Each describes in a different way the need for self-discipline and self-control - again empowered by the Holy Spirit and as a function of God's grace...but still as something that we are responsible for participating in.

I am finally beginning to realize that so often my/our unwillingness to take responsibility for the things we know we need to do is nothing short of laziness. There are some things that no one else can do for us, that we can only do for ourselves. Resting is one of those things. Our unwillingness to rest, to practice Sabbath, exposes the idols in our lives. Most often those idols take the shape of other people and the expectations we believe they have for us, our unwillingness to disappoint them, the way we place their opinions before God.

"We fidget because we know that in order to say yes to our need for silence and rest, we are going to have to say no to some other stuff. And none of us much want to say no, and not many of us have folks around us who are encouraging us to say no in order to say yes to the very important stuff. If we want to begin to make some clear steps in the direction of the silence and the solitude and the rest in which we shall be saved, we ourselves need to make those first steps."

BBC 3: Rest - Introduction

I love this chapter of A Good Life. The subject is rest. Rest is not something I have ever been particularly good at. Whatever internal mechanism human beings have that cause them to recognize that they are fatigued is absent in me. I work until I collapse. In fact, I often work past collapse and when I finally begin to shut down, I am unaware and surprised to find that my body and soul are not cooperating any longer. I have experienced this cycle too many times. And it is more than physical, just as we are more than physical. It is a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual reality.

I am now trying to be constantly aware of what I am doing in my body and what my activity costs me. Because my body won't tell me where I am - or maybe more accurately - because I have not learned how to listen to my body and recognize the language of limitation, I have had to create external structures to help me "know" that I am tired. I have to schedule times of recovery that correspond to the times of work, rhythms of engagement and disengagement. In this I am seeing progress in my life.

I am finite. So are you. Rest is an acceptance of our finitude, an acknowledgement that we are creatures who have limitations that must be honored. In the epigraph to this chapter, Benson quotes Benedict on this reality that many, if not all, of us come up against.

"Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die. Do not show too great a concern for the fleeting and temporal things of this world. One must not be excitable, anxious, extreme, obstinate, jealous, or over-suspicious. Such people are never at rest."

Be daily reminded that we are going to die. Let that reality temper the living of our days. It reminds me of a passage from Psalm 90 I read last week.

You turn men back to dust,
saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men."

For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.

You sweep men away in the sleep of death;
they are like the new grass of the morning-

though in the morning it springs up new,
by evening it is dry and withered...

The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger?
For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom (vv. 3-6, 10-12).

Rest is an acknowledgment of our creatureliness. It is orientation of humility towards God and ourselves - and according to Benedict, a way of loving others.

"All things are to be done with moderation on account of the fainthearted. Nothing is so inconsistent with the life of any Christian as overindulgence...Arrange everything so that the strong have something to yearn for and so that the weak have nothing to run from."

I don't know about you, but I have never really connected working too much (or in the wrong frame of mind) with overindulgence. I find that to be incredibly challenging. I'm used to thinking about overindulgence in the context of bodily appetites that get out of whack - hunger transformed into gluttony, attraction into lust, for example. Work into...what? Thoughts?

Also, Benedict and Benson are suggesting, in addition to prayer, one of the elements of a good life is a regular practice of rest. Has anyone intentionally developed a rhythm of routine of rest?

Border War I

Tonight is round one of the Kansas - Missouri border war, 2009 basketball edition. I think it's going to be a great game. Rock Chalk Jayhawk - KU!

An Old Kind of (New) Prayer: Some Resources

What resources are available to a person who would like to begin to step into the stream and tradition of prayer that is called the divine office? There are a great number of good resources to be discovered and employed.

As with anything new it helps to have a sense of what and why and how to do what you desire to do. Towards that end it is always possible to add more knowledge to our practice. Of course that is not always the answer either, as Ecclesiastes reminds us, of the pursuit of knowledge there is no end. Its acquisition often does nothing more than delay action or diminish rather than enhance impact. Nevertheless, if you desire more learning about praying the office, let me recommend two resources. I've already linked in a previous post to a sermon I preached during Lent last year that gives an overview of this type of prayer. You can listen to Learning the Rhythms of Prayer as one way to add depth to your practice. The other way is a new book by our same author, Robert Benson. Whereas A Good Life uses one short chapter to expose us to the rhythm and practice of prayer, In Constant Prayer is an entire book devoted to learning to pray the office. It is a great book that I read in three days. In fact it is part of a new series edited by Phyllis Tickle called The Ancient Practices Series. It's worth checking out.

One of the concepts that is introduced in the prayer literature is the concept of being called to prayer by the ringing of the bells. This practice dates to the Roman world where a bell would be rung at the beginning of the day to signal the opening of the market (sound familiar?), and then at intervals throughout the day thereon. First Jews, then Christians, living in the Roman empire would hear the bells ring but rather than respond according to the dictates of an imperial day, would instead respond to the bells as a summons by God to prayer. Throughout the book of Acts you can see the disciples going to the temple to prayer at different hours of the day. This is what is happening. So, the question for us is how can we likewise be summoned to prayer throughout the day? How can we be reminded of our ultimate allegiance and dependence on God as we do our work in the world?

A friend set the alarm on his phone to sound at specific times every day and inspired me to do the same. Last year Jacob's Well set up a Twitter feed during Lent that sent text messages to cell phone users that subscribed to the feed with a psalm to pray. Still other people use the meals of the day to create the space for prayer, being reminded that "man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Like I said, I have set my phone to ring an alarm four times a day: at 8:00 a.m. (morning), 11:25 a.m. (midday), 4:25 p.m. (evening), and 10:00 p.m. (night). I don't always pray every office. A good day is two times. But every time the bells ring (it is a ring-tone that sounds like church bells!), my thoughts turn to God and I at least acknowledge his presence in the moment. Whether you decide to prayer once, twice, four, or seven times a day, having something call you to prayer helps.

Finally, what liturgical prayer resources are available? There are many resources to choose from -  in fact maybe too many to be helpful. My advice is to begin simply. There are three different prayer books I recommend that I have used:

• Phyllis Tickle's three-volume set of The Divine Hours is great, though my most constant prayer companion is her small, one-volume breviary The Divine Hours Pocket Edition.

• Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Ireland, has published a wonderful little prayer book, The Glenstal Book of Prayer.

• Also, the Northumbria Community has a prayer book called Celtic Daily Prayer.

I would recommend beginning with Tickle's small prayer book, or with the one from Glenstal Abbey.

Fortunately, if you sit in front of a computer screen all day, there a some good online prayer resources to use as well.

The Northumbria Community's daily office mentioned above is available online. It is the prayer liturgy I use it when I don't have access to my prayer book. Also, the site Mission St. Clare offers a slightly more involved but yet accessible office to be used.

In all this, have fun and love God. Remember prayer is one part of a rhythm of life meant to be good and connected to our Creator. The peace of Christ be with you all. Amen.

A New Kind of (Old) Prayer: Some Perspective

I was going to make one more post about prayer before moving on to chapter three. However I think a two-parter is worthwhile. So, in this now third post on the topic of prayer (from chapter two of our BBC), I want to focus briefly on the spirit or perspective that I believe needs to animate our prayer (or the regular practice of any spiritual discipline). In the fourth and final post I will at last share some simple resources for those who wish to embark on this more liturgical prayer journey we are considering...

In the comments of the last BBC post, Chad described what I believe is the healthy tension he feels, and that I think many of us feel, in his desire to practice some kind of discipline to foster growth. Benson is offering us some new ways to be oriented in this way - or maybe better, he is re-orienting us to see things we have seen and done before in new ways. So what is that tension? The tension that is to be found in embracing our enthusiasm for growth and experimentation on one hand while on the other being wary of our very human tendency to lose sight of why we are doing something and instead make of it a legalistic measuring stick of our value. When that happens the result is predictable: a sense of failure that discourages, deflates, and finally debilitates us. This is a very important dynamic to address, albeit briefly. To Chad's comment, I wrote the following:

I agree. I think the ability to differentiate and then observe the spirit of the law from the letter of the law is the crux to any practice of a spiritual discipline. It is so easy and happens far too often that we mistake the practice as an end rather than a means to an end. With that in mind it is good to reconsider Paul's strong admonition to the Galatians 5:1 - "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Then the second half of verse 6 - "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love." Living in the freedom of grace is so critical and yet creates a dynamic that challenges us such that we often slide to one end or the other - freedom from any practice or boundary (resulting in bondage to ourselves/desires/whims) or bondage to our practices and boundaries (resulting in a bondage to our spiritual system). This is why I love how Paul wraps it up, as he often does, with love's preeminence.

Eric, having not yet received his copy of the book and thus only reading what has been quoted or described on the blog expressed some concern about the content of what he has been reading in the quotes and comments based on some of his past experience. This often happens when we are pulled out of our comfort zone as we seek to follow Jesus. Here is just a snippet of what I wrote in response to Eric.

In this, as with all things, you need to exercise discernment, to test the spirits as it were. At the same time, I don't think there should be a spirit of fear either. Towards that end, learning and discussion is critical to the process of discernment.

Why highlight this? Because I think Chad and Eric raise important points - points that I feel in the present or have felt in the past.

In talking about prayer we often we address the more mechanical aspects of it - how, when, where, etc. These are critical issues, to be sure. And like I said that is what the resource-oriented next post will address. But beyond the more detailed/mechanical side of this discussion, it is very important to pay attention to the spirit that animates any spiritual practice, especially when we have the opportunity to interact with something that is new to us. Can we do so in ways that are non-reactive, not founded in fear or unsustainable zeal, that pre-judge what we are encountering before we have had an actual encounter? When we discover something that is new and life-giving to us can we talk about it in ways that doesn't marginalize everyone who doesn't share the same experience or conviction? And can we have reasonable expectations of ourselves that recognize in advance we will not be able to live up to whatever unholy expectations we set for ourselves. Sadly and predictably, such maturity is rare. But even though such a posture of maturity is rare and not an easy one to hold, it is critical that recognize it's possibility in our lives so that we can strive toward it.

We are admonished in the New Testament not to quench the Spirit. We can do this in any number of ways. It certainly happens when we are over-reactive, unwisely zealous, fear-based, or prematurely-judgmental. How can we instead fan into a flame the Spirit that we are told is ours? How shall we posture ourselves in order to be open to the (new) ways that God might (or might not) be nudging us forward? And how can we sustain such a posture so that what is now based in freedom doesn't later become something that is bondage? As Paul writes, "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:6).

If I were to briefly describe an orientation that would help us to wisely engage this or any other new experience or opportunity, that would help us to be appropriately postured in response to God and one another, then I would do so by suggesting these four words as a starting point: grace, freedom, discernment, and community:

• God's grace is the empowering reality behind our efforts, giving shape to both the space where we interact with God and the content of those same interactions. In other words, God's grace saturates every aspect of prayer and thus we are released from anxiety and expectation. As a result...

• We are free to either try this or not, to "succeed" or "fail" (the quotes to highlight how ridiculous such a perspective is regarding spiritual practices) without any sense or being more or less a beloved child of God.

• Discernment speaks to the open and alert way we are called to engage the world within and without ourselves, prayerfully and faithfully bringing everything (explicit and implicit) to Christ. As followers of Jesus who are told repeatedly, "Do not fear," the spirit of our discernment is faith, hope, and love. And that which we bring to Christ in faith, hope, and love is not brought to him in isolation.

• Community is also part of the biblical equation for discernment and the locus for our practice. We practice our faith in community so that we may encourage, stimulate, challenge, correct, and teach one another in love.

Thoughts? Other words? How does the spirit versus the letter of the law play out in your spiritual practice?

A Day on Foot

The Amahoro board meeting ended this morning and the National Prayer Breakfast doesn't begin until tomorrow so I used the day to do one of my favorite things: walk around historic places and learn. So, I left some friends after lunch this afternoon, jumped on the Metro at DuPont Circle and took it down to the National Mall. Though this is my fourth or fifth time in DC, I went on a tour of the Washington Monument for the first time. The last couple of times I have been here the monument was closed for repairs. Let me tell you, the view of the United States capital from 500 feet is amazing. Though I only had my phone to take pictures with, you can get a sense of it. Of course, it you have Google Earth, you can get a much better sense!

BBC 2: Prayer - Quote

In chapter two of A Good Life, Robert Benson asks the question, "What does this ancient way of prayer have to do with us - we who are too busy and too frazzled and too harried in the age in which we find ourselves, we who do not live in a monastery but rather live in the world? Why should this prayer matter to us?"

Indeed.

Why should this prayer matter to us? Benson observes,

"The saying of the divine office - whether it be chanted or read silently, said seven times a day or four times a day or two times a day, privately or in communion...the Work of God [praying the divine office] offers us the chance to make our lives of prayer larger than our own lives. The divine office makes it possible for us to be included more deeply in the prayers of the whole body of Christ, from ages past to ages to come."

He goes on to share how praying the office reframes our experience of life: our prayer becomes less about ourselves, it connects us to the "whole community of Christ," that the cycles and seasons of prayer connect us to other stories and people, especially those who suffer. Then he concludes by offering one more effect of praying the office.

"Praying the office does another thing, too, a thing that is perhaps the most important of all. To pray the office is to frame the day with praise and thanksgiving. It serves to make the worship of God the center of our life. It changes the focus of our prayers from the created to the Creator. 'The Lord inhabits the praises of his people,' go the ancient words. And the people who do the praising as well, I believe."

It is for these reasons and more that prayer matters for the people of God. For those of you on this journey with me, who have either been praying the office for awhile, who are just beginning to pray the office, or are curious about the whole phenomena that Benson describes, why does this prayer matter to you? And how are you working it out in the living of your day? As James comments in the previous BBC post, what bells ring in your lives to call you to prayer among the many other places that you are being summoned to?

Before we move on to chapter three and the subject of rest, I want to make one more post on this topic/chapter that deals with some of the practical aspects of prayer and a few resources that are available for those who wish to step into this particular stream of praise and thanksgiving.