Reading An Agnostic: Lesson Learned

I told Bettyann that I have a real fascination with the vocabulary words used but the content of subject matter is "muddled and muddy" in a book I finished a couple of weeks ago.  Julian Barnes in his book Nothing to Be Feightend Of, “but I miss him” begins with "I don't believe in God." Though he admits he never had any faith to lose (a "happy atheist" as an Oxford student, Barnes now considers himself an agnostic), he still finds himself dreading the gradual ebbing of Christianity.  He misses the sense of purpose that the Christian narrative affords, the sense of wonder and belief that haunts Christian art and architecture.  "I miss the God that inspired Italian painting and French stained glass, German music and English chapter houses, and those tumbledown heaps of stone on Celtic headlands which were once symbolic beacons in the darkness and the storm."  Just one example of thoughts that surface as Barnes attempts to confront his fears of death and dying in this memoir.  He believes Christianity to be a foolish lie, but insists, "It was a beautiful lie."

There is certainly room for beauty in the description the apostle Paul gave of the gospel.  Like Julian, Paul saw its foolishness clearly as well:  "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21).  He also noted the weakness inherent in the Christian proclamation.  At the heart of the Christian religion is one who "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form" (Philippians 2:7).  On this much Paul and Julian agree: however beautiful, foolishness and weakness imbibe the Christian story.

But unlike Julian, Paul saw the foolishness of the gospel as a reason—not to disbelieve—but to believe.  "For God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).  This past week, I once again ruminated on a bit of a difficult explaination as to "why" at the heart of the Christian story there is a child, why God would answer the dark silence of 400 years with the cry of a rejected, forsaken, political failure, why God would take on the weakness of humanity in an attempt to reach humanity with power.  I think I would know better than to create, or to perpetuate, a story so foolish.  However beautiful, the story of Christ is difficult to explain; that is, unless it was not crafted with human wisdom at all.

The story of a Savior coming as an infant in Bethlehem is indeed astonishing, as astonishing as the divine putting on the flesh of a wounded humanity, as astonishing as the resurrection of this flesh.  That God chose to come into the world with a body, flesh that would suffer and die, is strange and paradoxical, beautiful and foolish.  Perhaps it is also wise beyond my comprehension.  "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength" (1 Corinthians 1:25).

I have discovered lately that although the word “incarn” has not been used for a generation or two, it was once used medically, describing the flesh that grows over a wound.  Applied to healing, the word refers to the recovery of wounded flesh due to the presence of new flesh.  The Incarnation and the resurrection, the astonishing events Christians once remembered in Advent and at Easter, the story that has inspired music, architecture, and hope, I think, is God's way of doing exactly that! Christ comes in flesh and is raised in flesh to cover our mortal wound.  God comes near in body and in weakness to bring healing to weak and wounded bodies.  To me, this may have seemed a foolish mission, at one time, but to the blind who receive their sight, the lame who now walk, the diseased who are cleansed, the deaf who hear, the dead who are raised, and the poor who have good news brought to them, it is the most beautiful foolishness they have ever known.  This morning, I stand amazed!

Me, A Shooting Star?

Just the other day I was in a conversation where the phrase: “God moves in mysterious ways,” was used and not one of us considered it more than a yawn in our thinking as immediately we went on with our nonchalant subject of the local planetarium’s production of the Star of Bethlehem.  Then in my time of reflection the next morning it occurred to me that “God moves in mysterious ways,” has become such a hackneyed cliché that it produces nothing more than a hint of endorsement at times for me.  I thought, as with other such simple truths, it is worthwhile to examine the weight of evidence that gave rise to the maxim in the first place. And the Christmas event gives me the best opportunity to do so, not only due to the humble circumstances surrounding the birth of Mary's child but also in light of the roles played by the cast of characters in the story. Like shooting stars, many of the characters enter and leave the stage without much fanfare, shining their lights for brief moments before fizzling out of the scene.

Take, for instance, John the Baptist. From his miraculous conception to his father's nine-month muteness, the Scriptures leave no doubt that he was a unique child. All who knew about him could not wait to see what he would become (Luke 1:66). Jesus would say later that John was greater than any prophet who had existed up to that point. But John's role in the life of Jesus lay many years in the future, with the intervening period being largely uneventful. Like the persons who have introduced me as a speaker at a conference or guest minister in a pulpit, the whole purpose of his existence was reduced to the occasion of announcing the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah. Like a shooting star, John's light fizzled out when the Messiah entered the scene. I think it curious how a carousing band of petty potentates succeeded in ending John's life in such seemingly tragic and frivolous circumstances while the King of Kings walked about the same neighborhood?

Well, they may have succeeded in ending his life, but they never defeated his purpose. John had already calmly reassured his disciples that it was alright to take down the props. His job was done, his joy was complete, and he was prepared to become less so that the Messiah could become greater. John 3:27-30  Unlike a permanent star planted in the sky as part of the very fabric of the universe, John's role on the stage was quite short-lived, though he still carried it out in style—both in dress and diet. 

Another such character was Simeon to whom God had given the promise that he would live to see the birth of the Lord's Christ. Taking the child in his arms, Simeon could not help but offer praise to the director of the entire production for dismissing him in peace. I also think of Anna, an eighty-four year-old woman who had prayed and fasted in the temple ever since her seven-year marriage came to an end with the death of her husband. She too had a role to play in the drama of the birth of Jesus: her shining moment was the solitary event of holding Baby Jesus in her arms and saying something about him!

I recognize that by focusing my attention on seemingly menial tasks performed by people whose lives were otherwise mundane and uneventful, the stories of the church conspires to teach me that though the world is indeed a stage on which human beings make their entrances and exits, as Shakespeare claimed, God takes special interest in the every role. The sheer number of names in the very pages of the Bible and the countless ordinary, unnamed individuals through whom God has accomplished his purposes in the world testify to that. And though my role at seventy may not seem as glamorous as the roles played by others, it is an indispensable piece of the larger puzzle in the mind of God. The hymn, God Moves in Mysterious Ways, contains a warning that is really my worth heeding, especially in light of the apprehensive mood in which I enter these next few day of the Christmas season and the coming New Year:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

And, by the way, Bill, one more thing! And don’t ever forget it!" Shooting stars" are not stars at all. They are broken pieces of rock or metal that burn up once they come into contact with the earth's atmosphere, eventually landing upon the earth as dust. Just like the moon, the light they reflect is not their own, but unlike the moon, they are used up in the process of lighting up the sky. What a fitting metaphor for the myriad of individuals, like John the Baptist, Simeon, Anna, and countless others throughout history, who have been content to be used up for the sake of the Kingdom of God! Of such the world is not worthy. Even though they do return to the earth as dust, the earth itself will eventually have to give up even their bodies, for the Babe of Bethlehem clothed himself with dust so that the person of dust may be eternally clothed with glory. Merry Christmas!

Prepared vs Unprepared

When I think about it, I was raised to make all kinds of preparations.  As a younger child, my mother would ask, often, “ Do you have clean underwear on?”  She always gave the same reasoning for the question by saying, “god forbid a car hit  you and go to the hospital; what will they think if your underwear is dirty?”  I now ask! I don’t care what they think; just FIX ME!  As a Cub and Boy Scout I took an oath to Be Prepared. When going on a hunting trip with my father, he would always let me know if I was prepared or not.  I learned to be prepared for pop quizzes.  I was warned to be prepared when I took a wife, decided to become and father or certain profession.  Then as a young pastor I learned quickly the importance of being prepared “in and out of the pulpit.”   

This past week, I reminded myself of just how unprepared I was when coming down a flight of rock steps.  I was in Massachusetts during a very wet snow.  During the night the temperature had dropped precipitously and frozen the beautiful snow; turning it to ice.  On the third step down, I slipped, my feet going straight in front of me and literally bounced on my butt and right elbow down, on every edge of rock tread, ending into the side of the car.  Trying desperately to catch my breath, thanking God I was still alive, yet in tremendous pain, these thoughts came to me: “O’ no, I didn’t bring my Medicare (I despise capitalizing that word)  and supplemental insurance card!; I left them in my car, at home.  I’ll be waiting in an overcrowded  emergency "guest" room until admissions sorts through those forty individuals who entered prior to me for information as far back as a birth certificate before I am able to tell my unconvincing story of forgetfulness, excellent family history, and imbalance on ice due to not taken the opportunity to practice. There really is the need to respond to Bettyann, with a bit more joy, when she asks me if I have everything I need." 

For Bettyann and I, this Christmas season, as the past forty seven, is a season of preparation. We are busily preparing our home for guests, we decorate (she directs and I do the ladder) cook special meals, and we individually purchase gifts as we anticipate the arrival of Christmas morning. In general, we have always busied ourselves with preparations because of the joy and gladness we anticipate with the arrival of Christmas day. Since Thanksgiving, I have been reading and reflecting on Advent, which culminates in the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and discovered discovered a season of preparation in an entirely different way.

I have been learning that the first movement of Advent calls me to prepare my heart through repentance for the day of the Lord. I'm seeing with clearity that Advent not only looks ahead to the birth of Jesus as a baby, but also to his coming as the Messiah King. The ancient prophets of old heralded a Messiah who would usher in the kingdom of God; but the prelude for his coming would be a righteous cleansing. The prophet Malachi warned: "But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap."  Malachi 3:1-4.

 

The coming "day of the Lord" would bring a cataclysmic cleansing. Like a refiner's fire that burns the impurities from precious metals, the Lord would purify the priestly line and establish righteousness. Echoing this prophetic tradition, the voice of John the Baptist hundreds of years later called the people to "prepare the way of the Lord." John called for a preparation of repentance, just like the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi: "Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

As Isaiah envisioned, repentance prepared the way for the coming Messiah. The Messiah came as the refiner's fire, and as the one who brought low every mountain and hill in the judgment of unrighteousness. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented this lost theme of the preparation of repentance in an Advent sermon he preached in 1928:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer shares, It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming, so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God....We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for every one who has a conscience. Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love.  A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 185-186.

For the very first time in my life, I understand that the Advent season intends to prepare my heart through repentance, for God will come again to judge the world in righteousness. The prophets similarly intended to prepare hearts with repentance as they looked toward God's entry into the world in Jesus Christ. I rejoice that such repentance does not leave me in fear or shame at my undoing. Rather, my godly repentance prepares the way for hope—hope that in Jesus, God's justice and mercy are joined. Isaiah envisioned a hopeful outcome from the preparation of repentance: "[A]ll flesh shall see the salvation of God....Like a shepherd He will tend his flock, in his arm He will gather the lambs, and carry them in his bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes" (Isaiah 40:5-11). The God who will judge the world in righteousness is the same God who gathers people like a shepherd and tends the flock with gentleness. The most vulnerable—lambs and nursing ewes—are not forgotten.

So, Bill, this season of Advent calls for the preparations of your repentance. For you it will be a repentance that acknowledges the need for change. Not your underware or snow tires, or jacket.  But a change of the soul. It will be a repentance that brings hope into your personal culture busied by all your preparations, a repentance that brings hope in the loving justice of God.

 

 

 

 

For both, Bettyann and I, the Christmas season is a season of preparation. We are busily preparing our home for guests, we decorate (she directs and I do the ladder) and cook special meals, and we individually purchase gifts as we anticipate the arrival of Christmas morning. In general, we have always busied ourselves with preparations because of the joy and gladness we anticipate with the arrival of Christmas day. Since Thanksgiving, I have been reading and reflecting on Advent, which culminates in the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and discovered discovered a season of preparation in an entirely different way.

I have been learning that the first movement of Advent calls me to prepare my heart through repentance for the day of the Lord. I'm seeing with clearity that Advent not only looks ahead to the birth of Jesus as a baby, but also to his coming as the Messiah King. The ancient prophets of old heralded a Messiah who would usher in the kingdom of God; but the prelude for his coming would be a righteous cleansing. The prophet Malachi warned: "But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap."  Malachi 3:1-4.

The coming "day of the Lord" would bring a cataclysmic cleansing. Like a refiner's fire that burns the impurities from precious metals, the Lord would purify the priestly line and establish righteousness. Echoing this prophetic tradition, the voice of John the Baptist hundreds of years later called the people to "prepare the way of the Lord." John called for a preparation of repentance, just like the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi: "Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

As Isaiah envisioned, repentance prepared the way for the coming Messiah. The Messiah came as the refiner's fire, and as the one who brought low every mountain and hill in the judgment of unrighteousness. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented this lost theme of the preparation of repentance in an Advent sermon he preached in 1928:

"It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming, so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God....We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for every one who has a conscience. Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 185-186.

TFor the very first time in my life, I understand that the Advent season intends to prepare my heart through repentance, for God will come again to judge the world in righteousness. The prophets similarly intended to prepare hearts with repentance as they looked toward God's entry into the world in Jesus Christ. I rejoice that such repentance does not leave me in fear or shame at my undoing. Rather, my godly repentance prepares the way for hope—hope that in Jesus, God's justice and mercy are joined. Isaiah envisioned a hopeful outcome from the preparation of repentance: "[A]ll flesh shall see the salvation of God....Like a shepherd He will tend his flock, in his arm He will gather the lambs, and carry them in his bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes" (Isaiah 40:5-11). The God who will judge the world in righteousness is the same God who gathers people like a shepherd and tends the flock with gentleness. The most vulnerable—lambs and nursing ewes—are not forgotten.

So, Bill, this season of Advent calls for the preparations of your repentance. For you it will be a repentance that acknowledges the need for change. It will be a repentance that brings hope into your personal culture busied by all your preparations, a repentance that brings hope in the loving justice of God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson From a Front Yard Blow Up

As I stood there in the middle of the street admiring the curb appeal in the Nativity “blow-up display,” it seemed abit disconceting; the child in the scene is not quite the focal point that I intended; the fact hit me that the story of my spiritual life is a story filled with nativity scenes.

In those stories, I have found a God who was present before I have accomplished anything and longing to gather me long before I knew it. Thus David can pray, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." And God can say to the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." And those who witnessed the miracle of Elizabeth and Zechariah can rightly exclaim God's hand upon the child before that child could say his own name: "The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.  Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, 'What then is this child going to be?' For the Lord's hand was with him." Psalm 139:13-14, Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1:65-66.

In a world where significance and identity are earned by what I do, by what I have accomplished, by what I own, and Christmas is about the lines I fought, the lists I finished, the gifts I was able to secure, the kingdom of God arrives scandalously, jarringly—even offensively—into my captive and often content life. In this kingdom, my personal value begins before I have said or done the right things, before I have accumulated the right lifestyle, or even made the right lists. In this kingdom, God not only uses my infancy in the story of salvation, not only called me to embrace the kingdom as a little child, but so the very God of creation steps into the world as a child.  

Children are not usually the main characters in the stories I tell, (unless they are my grandchildren “stars”) yet the story of Christmas begins and ends with a child most don't quite know what to do with. Here, a vulnerable baby in a stable of animals breaks in as the harbinger of good news, the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets, the anointed leader who comes to set the captives free—wrapped in rags and resting in a manger. Coming as a child, God radically draws near, while at the same time radically overthrowing our conceptions of status, worth, power, and authority. Jesus is crowned king long before he can sit in a throne. He begins overturning idols and upsetting social order long before he can even speak.

If truth be told, perhaps I feel a certain delight when I meet someone who’s birthday is at Christmas time because it is the season in which it is most appropriate—and most hopeful—to remember my fragility, my dependency, and the great reversal of the kingdom of God: For God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27. I'm thinking now, as I write that Advent, like childhood, reminds me that I am in need of someone to hold me.  Shamelessly, when my maternal grandfather used to do so; just out of pure joy and love of me.  It also reminds me that, like the baby in a Bethlehem stable, I too am somewhat out of place, homeless and longing, not morbidly, for my eternal home. The image of a tearful baby in a manager is a picture of God in his most shocking, unbefitting state—the Most High becoming the lowest, the face of God wrapped tightly in a young girl's arms.

How true that to be human is to be implicitly religious, for even within my most deeply felt needs for love and refuge, I am reminded that there is one who comes so very far to meet me. Inherent in my most vulnerable days is the hope that God, too, took on the despairing quality of fragility in order to offer the hope of wholeness. In my most weakened state of despair and shortcoming, Christ breaks in and shows the paradoxical power of God in an unlikely nativity scene on my front lawn . Glory to God in the lowest, indeed.

Stressed On December 3RD

This past Sunday, driving home after worship, Bettyann pointed out to me the tents set up in front of a well know electronic store.  I asked, What's with that?"  She discribed to me that the tents were occupied by those who want to be the first into the store to make their purchase the day after Thanksgiving.  Why, I asked, would they want to be the first persons in the store. It is because they are affraid the special item or special price might disappear  within a few minutes or hours after the store opening.  I now have reason to believe that BLACK FRIDAY has a very strong definition. I can imagine myself hiking a wilderness trail and tenting at night but never five to seven days in front of a store!  According to the Mental Health America organization, dedicated to the study and aid of mental health, holiday stress is a widespread occurrence that plagues more of the population every year, for more time each year. In an article entitled: Survey Identifies Top Holiday Stressors, Who's Most Stressed, we are told: "Americans are stressed during the holidays, we've long known this," said David Shern. "However, on January 2, when a person may expect the stress let up, they instead find themselves feeling down, physically ill, or anxious.  This is because stress takes a serious toll on a person's overall health—both physical and mental. Hardly unique to America.” 

If there were somehow miraculously a way to transport someone from the time of the Old Testament into this conversation and he listened to me, alone, describe the stress I feel as I move closer and closer to Christmas, he would concur. I would of course first have to explain what Christmas is—namely, the remembrance of the birth of the Messiah, the day
God came among us. But at this explanation, he would immediately understand. In fact, he would find it completely remarkable if anyone should not face with stress, awe, and trembling the thought that God is coming, that God is here.

Now, of course, I am well aware that this is not why I am stressed at Christmastime. Every year for as long as I can remember, I have been, more or less, stressed at the approach of Christmas because of finances, because of family, because of the absence of family, because of over-indulgence, because I have had much to do, or because I have too little to do and feel the pointed edges of loneliness. This year, it is that I am relocating my shop, while behind on making gifts, decorating the exterior of our home with holiday curb appeal five days prior to joining our youngest daughter and family in New Jersey for an annual  week of joyful Christmas celebration, holiday pageantry and large doses of hugging around the Christmas tree.  Then it's back to Florida in time for friends and family celebration, concerts, pageantry, and gatherings. There have been times, the thought that Christmas is coming is indeed one that invoked fear, trembling, and attention, though much for all the wrong reasons.

In the times of Moses, David, and the prophets, the nearness of God awakened a sense of awe and consciousness. "Should you not fear me?" declares the LORD. "Should you not tremble in my presence?" Jeremiah 5:22.  "Woe to me!" Isaiah cried when God appeared before him. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" Isaiah 6:5. The early church, too, spoke of Christ's coming in terms of power, majesty, and the requiring of a radical response. "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty....and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place" 2 Peter 1:16-19. The coming of Christ bids, not alone me but the world to stop and take notice, to tremble at a powerful story that changed everything.

So, I ask, have I become so accustomed to the thought of God's coming at Christmas that I no longer feel the trembling of power when God comes near? Have I lost the ability to see a light shining in a dark place and by it my own impoverished reflections? Can I consider the unthinkable love of a God who comes near? Or will I see first the confining aspects of a stressful holiday and only second or not at all the coming of a child?

Ironically, the season of Advent, which in spirit is quite different than the seasonal bustle of Christmas, has been compared to living in a prison, though far from the prison-scenario I have  envisioned this time of years past. Advent envisions enslavement, but not in the lists of things that need to be done or the emotional waves of the season. It is a far more real type of confinement: the enslavement of self, the imprisonment of sin, the dependence of creatureliness.  At seventy I am once again learning that Advent envisions me waiting for the One who breaks in and sets me free. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew well the cold walls of a prison cell, writes this of confinement: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 224-225.

"Christ is breaking open his way to you. He wants to again soften your heart, which has become hard. In these weeks of Advent while we are waiting for Christmas, he calls to us that he is coming and that he will rescue us from the prison of our existence, from fear, guilt, and loneliness. Do you want to be redeemed? This is the one great question Advent puts before us.... But let us make no mistake about it. Redemption is drawing near. Only the question is: Will we let it come to us as well or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it? Either with us or without us, Christmas will come. It is up to each individual to decide what it will be."
 In all my preparing lists, decorating, and company on its way, Advent is reminding me that Christmas will come. Christmas will come because Christ has come, because Christ is coming. It is all up to me of what kind of reception am I going to offer when he breaks in?

Out of the Box Thoughts on Thanksgiving

"In everything give thanks" is an admonition of my faith that often confounds me. Reading the news of the world even as I anticipate a national day of Thanksgiving juxtaposes the overwhelming need of the world with a surreal celebration of abundance. Unemployment is still high. Giving to charity is at its lowest in many sectors. Wars and rumors of wars terrorize so many, and it is a wonder that it is even possible to give thanks for anything. Yet, to hear others giving thanks—particularly from those who struggle in circumstances where I would be stretched to find any reason for praise—always lends itself to beauty and indicates a gratefulness that transcends material bounty and benefit.

For those who lived in ancient Israel, the concept of thanksgiving was explicitly tied to memory. The praises of Israel recalled a history in which God was intimately involved. Indeed, the exhortation to remember the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt was a frequent refrain. The ancient poets and prophets extended the invitation to remember the days of old when the Lord came near to the people even in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness. They remembered a God who "encircled them, cared for them, and guarded them as the pupil of his eye." The psalmists reminded the people to "remember that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer," and Job cried out in defiant praise after suffering horrific loss, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."  Deuteronomy 5:15; 32:7-12, Psalm 78:35, and Job 1:21.

I read in Acts 2:42-47, Philippians 4:6, Revelation 7:12 that a spirit of thanksgiving marked the earliest followers of Jesus as well. These early believers seemed so overjoyed at the Spirit's work among them that they shared meals, their property and possessions, and were continually praising God. Paul exhorted the Philippian Christians to offer their prayers and supplications "with thanksgiving," and the endless song around the throne of heaven in Revelation sounds the chorus for "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever." Indeed, the apostle Paul insists that giving thanks in everything is the will of God and the biblical witnesses seem to affirm his insistence.

To have a national day of thanksgiving (of which the United States is far from alone), I believe it calls its residents to pay particular attention to offering thanks. And while I am grateful for a day set apart to focus on thanksgiving and a worldview that provides me with one to thank, I am challenged to live into giving thanks in everything every day of the year. At times, I’ve experienced thanksgiving not always coming easily. Yet when I give thanks for the faithfulness of God there is no room for jealousy over what others have; no room for complaining about what I lack.

Even in times of deepest sorrow, there is a joy that rises up within the heart to praise even
with tears. I’m thankful to say that, at times, thanksgiving has filled my heart full of gladness, which overflows and spills out into acts of kindness and generosity for others. When I am grateful, I cannot help but share my gratitude. And I know this sharing is the will of God for my life. May this continue to be so for the remainder of my Thanksgivings!  As the author of the letter to the Hebrews sums up: "Through God then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifices God is pleased." Hebrews 13:15-16.

Lesson From Huck Finn

There was a yearning, awhile ago, to reread some of the books of my youth.  Among those  I downloaded on my iPad were the Secret Garden, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Huckleberry Finn first heard about prayer from Miss Watson, who told him that prayer was something you did everyday and that you'd get what you asked for. So he tried three or four times praying for hooks to complete his fishing line, but when he still didn't get what he asked for decided that "No, there ain't nothing in it."

At my age, I'm discovering more and more that prayer is a curious activity. It is one I seem, at times, almost inclined naturally toward, while other times, like Huck, conclude I somehow just "couldn't seem to make it work."

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say:

'Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.'" Luke 11:1-4.

It seems to me, that the Lord's Prayer is still held and practiced by fewer and fewer Christians, comes out of this context. That is, out of a plea for help with prayer and out of the praying of Jesus himself. It also seems to me, that it is not just the good advice Jesus had to offer about praying; it is his praying. In fact, giving his followers this prayer, Jesus, like John, was following a common rabbinic pattern. When a rabbi taught a prayer, he would use it to teach his disciples the most distinctive, concise, essential elements of his own teachings. Thus, disciples would learn to pray as their teacher prayed, and from then on, when a disciple's prayer was heard, it would sound like that of his teacher's prayers, bearing his mark and posture before God.

To me, this suggests, when I pray the Lord's Prayer today, it is simultaneously an offering of the voice of Jesus, a declaration that I belong to him, and a pronunciation of the lessons he wanted me most to learn.  Just my druthers, I suppose, but the of being a part of a congregation that prays the Lord’s Prayer, contemporarily.

Somewhat different than fishing hooks, the prayer for daily bread is foundational. News of world food shortages, the prevalence of malnourishment, and volatile food prices remind me the epetition that cries for basic provision are appropriate and necessary. Fifteenth century theologian Martin Luther spoke of the prayer for daily bread as the plea for "everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like."  "The Small Catechism," The Book of Concord, 357. In other words, bread is not merely the private concern of those who need something to eat. It is far broader than this, including far more than bread and far more than isolated individuals before God. Our daily bread is something friends, neighbors, communities, economic situation, and governments affect collectively.

Christ's prayer for daily bread, then, is a prayer for food and clothing, but also for good neighbors, good rulers, and good conscience as I face need and want with others.

My prayer for daily bread can be a reminder that I do not live in a vacuum before God. Rather, I live in a community where I am responsible for others. So when I pray for daily bread, like Jesus, I pray for God's care and provision. But subsequently, I am praying against the things in life that prevent God's provisions. For example, this may well be corrupt governments; it may also be my own hardened heart, fearful spirit, or a self-consumed and consuming living.

 

And if I pray the words Jesus told me to pray, I pray out of the same paradox in which Jesus prayed himself. He was both the Son who knew he would need the Father's provision to get through the days before him and the Son who poured out his life for the crowds and individuals that needed him. Praying for daily bread, I am simultaneously the wealthy who can respond to the needs around me in gratitude for all that God has given me and the impoverished who cry out for the daily bread they need and the God who sustains us both. I am both the rich and the poor, united to my neighbors in ways I am constantly invited to imagine, lest I find myself in only one category. In difficult days, in plentiful days, might I cry to God:  Give me this day my daily bread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wondering - Been There and Got the T-Shirt

Re-visiting "old stopping grounds of spiritual living," with a younger Christian friend, in the mountains; I began reflecting on my youth filled years. He told me how disconcerted he has been, now forty odd, since his late teens. He continues running head long into many conflicting issues in family, marital, friends, and church relationships along with personal and vocational decisions. Giving no advise, I openly shared how I had lived regularly anxious over the discordant identities of who I was and who God wanted me to be instead.  I told him the list in my head was long and challenging, and I was so used to falling short that I was growing tired of even trying.  But on one day, visiting a friend's Presbyterian church, a hymn struck me as a prayer out of my own young, inharmonious experience:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

At the time, the thought was comforting in its confirmation that I was not alone.  It was later, in my early twenties, of the discovery that it was an echo of the apostle Paul’s words and a reminder that I was not the only believer stumbling along the way of Christ:  "I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate....I can will what is right, but I cannot do it" (Romans 7:15,18).  In my struggle to live up to the designation of Christ-follower, I could, in good company, admit my condition before God and pray for God's help.

Yet far more than the assurance that the Christian religion is a religion filled with people who struggle, I am assured by the promise of God in the midst of that struggle, in the midst of weakness and wandering.  In the words of the Belgic Confession, Article, 17: "[O]ur good God...set out to find humanity, though humanity, trembling all over, was fleeing from God."  At the deepest levels of my humanity, it is true that I am prone to wander, prone to sin, prone to flee from God, but remarkably, that it was in my deepest state of ruin, my deepest plunge into sinfulness, when God stepped forward, unwilling to let me remain in such a state.  The image is beautiful: "God proves his love for me in that while I still a sinner Christ died for me."  Long before I could even articulate my lostness, God in his mercy set out to find me, setting forth a plan to make right within me all that is awry.  

In this, I have discovered that faith itself, like the accomplishment of Christ on the Cross, is a gift given not out of my own merit, but out of the heart of God.  I have been brought to believe by the power of the Spirit and the God who opened my eyes to the work of Christ in the first place.  Thus, even in my struggle to live as I believed a faithful Christian should live is in fact the very promise of God's presence to my troubled young adult mind.

Yes, there are still times I have entertained thoughts of regret that I have wandered, in my deep despair that I have fallen away from God, but it is also  the sign of God all along, who has never left.  The Holy Spirit perhaps is convicting me to draw nearer and away from whatever has caused me to notice a separation, but in this, God was the one convicting—not my list of rules or the expectations of the church.  My conviction only serves as a sign that God has followed where I wandered.

Whether the Spirit is calling my attention to a faith that could see even more or calling me to remove an obstacle I have placed before the Cross, God is near.  Psalms 139 assures me; though I wander and doubt, though I attempt to flee from God's presence or settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even here, God's hand upholds the wanderer.

The story of redemption is the story of a good Father who delights in giving his children good gifts.  In words that continue to encourage wanderers like me:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

The Father has indeed not only accepted the seal of Christ, but the

Spirit continues to work this good gift within me, accommodating me in my weakness, calling me further into the life of the kingdom of God.

Painful Moments

Wendell Berry tells a short story, entitled: "Pray Without Ceasing," of two friends who lived in a small community in Kentucky in the year 1912.  Ben Feltner and Thad Coulter were part of a close-knit agrarian community with strong ties to each other, to the land, and to hard work.  Yet tragedy ensued when Thad invested in a risky business deal with his son and lost out.  Humiliated and falling into despair, Thad drank himself into a stupor and then headed over to ask his friend Ben for help.  Ben did not want to discuss options with Thad in his condition, and so refused to talk with him until the next day when he was sober.  However, Thad succumbed to the darkness creeping over him and returned home to get his gun, which he then used to shoot Ben Feltner in a drunken rage.  The rest of the story was a beautiful tale of forgiveness and mercy offered by Ben's family and the community.  Yet sadly, Thad himself was unable to experience that forgiveness because he could not bear to live knowing he had killed his best friend, and so ended his own life. 

Berry then makes this profound comment: "People sometimes talk of God's love as if it's a pleasant thing.  But it is terrible, in a way.  Think of all it includes.  It included Thad Coulter, drunk and mean and foolish, before he killed Mr. Feltner, and it included him afterwards."

"God's love is terrible, in a way.  Think of all it includes."  I have often been asked, "Could God not have forgiven people without going through the pain and the violence of the Cross?"  As nice as that sounds, reality forces me to ask: When is forgiveness not painful?  True forgiveness cannot occur unless the hurt is acknowledged and called for what it is.  Truthfully, when I look a wrong full in the face but choose to accept the hurt instead of returning it on the one who did it, that has always been painful.

Jesus illustrates forgiveness by telling the story of a servant who owes his master more money than he could possibly repay (See Matthew 18:21-35).  The master originally threatens to sell the servant's family and possessions to get some return for the debt, but when the servant begs for mercy, the master is gracious and forgives the debt.  Yet the same servant not only refuses to forgive the debt of his fellow servant, but also has him thrown in prison as punishment.

Sometimes I have treated forgiveness and justice as though they are mutually exclusive.  If I chose the way of justice, I thought the options to be reparations or retribution—either the guilty person makes up for a wrong or is punished for it.  These are the only options the servant offered his debtor.  Since the second servant could  I am included in and redeemed by the deep and wide love of God.  Paul is astonished by this realinot repay, he was then punished.  However, the master chose the way of mercy when he forgave the debt, neither requiring reparation nor inflicting retribution.  If God has really forgiven me like the master forgave the servant, I ask, then why all the pain and death of the Cross?  Does the Cross undermine God's mercy?  Is it merely an underhanded way for God to force repayment from humanity or exact punishment on me?

In asking these questions, don't I betray a misunderstanding of both justice and forgiveness.  Justice can never be achieved by reparation or retribution alone because like the servants' debts, true wrongs can never be repaid.  The hurt and pain caused are not reversible.  Punishing the guilty person does not undo the hurt either, even if it brings brief satisfaction to the victim, just as the first servant did not get his money back simply because the other man was in jail.  I'm finding that justice must be about much more than balancing out the wrongs of the world.  It must be about making things right, about the kind of restoration that does not reverse the pain, but moves beyond it toward something new.

And just as wrongs cannot be erased by punishment or repayment, they cannot really be erased by simple forgiveness either.  When the master forgives the servant's debt, the debt does not simply disappear.  The master takes the loss!  He accepts the full brunt of the debt himself.  Similarly, when I forgive, I must accept the full brunt of the hurt or injustice rather than returning it on the one who caused it.  Although it is painful, this is the way that healing and restoration begin.  This is why there is no way to avoid the bloody Cross.  And this is why God's love is terrible.  This includes: me, with my best and my worst, with my failed attempts and outright cruelty, with my wrong motives for right actions and my right motives for wrong actions... with the mess I have made of my world, with my brokenness and despair, with my rebellions and inadequacies. 

Instead of demanding that I pay what I cannot, instead of punishing me for not paying what I cannot, the God I see in Jesus Christ accepts the loss himself and opens his arms even to those who would murder him.  The Cross does not represent God's mercy being tamed by his anger; rather, it demonstrates that God's mercy is much bigger than what I could ever imagine.  The Cross is a graphic picture of God's terrible love.  I cannot fathom all that it includes.

What I'll Do With My Wealth

A few months ago, the History Channel aired; what to me was an interesting, Sunday night series entitled: The Men Who Built America.  My fascination with the subject led me to deeper research on one of these men: Andrew Carnegie.  Sorry to say I found that producers of the television series contained very little real history.   

I became especially interested with the true about the great act of generosity that created the Carnegie libraries.  I did not realize the story behind the Carnegie libraries nor did I know anything about Andrew Carnegie's wealth he amassed and gave away to build amazing libraries. Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant to the United States, represents the classic tale of rags to riches that is the quintessential reflection of the American dream.  Ingenious, shrewd, and visionary without any formal education beyond grade school, Carnegie became the richest man in America during the "The Gilded Age" of the late nineteenth century. Riding the wave of rapid development from the Industrial Revolution, Carnegie became the king of industry, first of railroads and then of steel.

But Carnegie's was a mixed legacy. An on line transcript entitled: From American Experience: "Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man in the World, sites that while he amassed fortunes, his workers languished for pennies in what is described as one of the "darkest chapters in American labor history." While he may have been less ruthless than some of his other industry contemporaries, by today's ethical standards for laborers, Carnegie was brutal in his demands for long hours of labor with very little pay.

I began to pay attention to Carnegie's life and legacy because he is an oft-cited inspiration for two of the richest men in the world today who systematically give their money away.  These two men are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.  Gates and Buffett cite an oft-quoted refrain from Carnegie: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced... And besides, it provides a refuge from self-questioning."  Perhaps some of Carnegie's own self-questioning came from the way in which he made his money, seeking efficiency and profit at the expense of worker well-being.  Whatever the case, the richest man in the world believed that money made from society should be given back to society.  From Carnegie's example, Buffett and Gates go and do likewise with their own fortunes.   

Capitalism, at its heart, is about multiplying and advancing capital.  But, I ask myself: what is to be done with immense profits?  Perhaps, in the example of Andrew Carnegie, despite a mixed legacy, one might recognize that wealth production should include social capital—namely, that great gains financially can be accompanied by great gains for society and for the public good.  Great wealth can bring profit not just for individuals, but for communities, cities, and indeed, regions all around the world.  Like the biblical notion of being blessed to be a blessing, my wealth—time, treasure, and talent—can be used for the sort of profit that is more than just individual, capital gain.

Since I follow Jesus, I have a powerful motivation to view my wealth in the same manner, and his instruction on the matter is yet another illustration of his concern for the whole and not merely an isolated group, like the top 1, 2,3, 4, 5 percent of the wealthy.  Jesus instructed his followers to "go and sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure where no thief comes near nor moth destroys."  This means, as John Galligan, commentator, points out in an 1985 article of Spirituality Today that "possessions in themselves are neither good or bad; it is the choices that one makes concerning them that determines their significance... the proper use of material goods that are non-essential to the disciple is to be manifested in the positive act of helping those in need."

In other words, wealth can create profit, but the kind of profit my immense time, talent and small treasure creates is up to me to decide.  Recognizing the eternal thruth: Where my wealth is, there will my heart be also.

Another Paradox of My Life

The property that Quiet Rest sits on was personally explored in early summer of 2003.  It was an exhilarating experience. I thought of the view I would see once on top of the little mountain.  When I arrived it was not disappointing, rather chills of joy ran up and down my arms.  It had taken thirty to forty five minutes, literally crawling through thickets of Mountain Laurel, Rhododendron, fern and briars.  I stopped, catching my breath, for seconds, only before attacking numerous extra steep slopes, traveled easily by wild game, where a road has been cut out for my access today.  I was sixty then. 

The other day, starting at the top, I proceeding down the road, leisurely taking pictures of the various species of wild mushrooms along the edges and banks.  After an hour and a half I had reached the bottom and realizing the rain clouds moving quickly, I began my return to the house. Within twenty yards, my legs cramped, my chest pounded, my body dehydrated, and I sat for five minutes before I was able to breath with normal cadence.  It took me seven of those breaks before I collapsed in a willow chair on the front porch. I am only seventy, now.  

The experience scared me a bit and from it, the next morning, I began drawing out in symbols and timelines the road map of my life. I drew in both single and crucial moments as well as entire years marked with particular themes of development.  The picture of my life shows distinctly abrupt moments of pivotal formation and gradual phases of transformation.  It, to me, is of somewhat a paradox that insight seems to grow gradually and yet it also seems to arrive in overpowering moments of abruptness. 
As Peter, James, and John climbed the mountain with Christ, they were startled when Elijah and Moses appeared before them, talking with Jesus.  It must have seemed a moment of both honor and awe.  Peter immediately responded to it.  "Lord, it is good for us to be here.  If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah" (Matthew 17:4).  But before he had finished speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them and a voice from the heavens thundered, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!"  The disciples were terrified.  And then as suddenly as it all began, they looked up and saw no one but Jesus.

In my life there have been transforming moments that seemed isolated in both time and vividness.  I remember them as mountaintops or downfalls, points in life lifted above or plummeting below the majority of the map.  But I now ask myself; are they not also much more than this?  Whether distinguished by joy or pain, I now realize a transforming moment is always more than a moment.  Such moments are no more isolated in the picture of my life than they are isolated in the picture of reality. 

Professor and theologian James Loder was on vacation with his family when they noticed a motorist off to the side of the road waving for help.  In his book The Transforming Moment, he describes kneeling at the front fender of the broken-down car, his head bent to examine the flat tire, when he was a brutally alerted to the sound of screeching brakes.  A motorist who had fallen asleep at the wheel was jarred awake seconds before his vehicle crashed into the disabled car alongside the road and the man who knelt beside it.  Loder was left pinned between the car he was trying to repair and his own.
 
Years later, he was compelled to describe the impact of a moment marked by pain, and yet unarguably something much more.  Writes Loder, "At the hospital, it was not the medical staff, grateful as I was for them, but the crucifixes—in the lobby and in the patients' rooms—that provided a total account of my condition.  In that cruciform image of Christ, the combination of physical pain and the assurance of a life greater than death gave objective expression and meaning to the sense of promise and transcendence that lived within the midst of my suffering."

This encounter with God, like the Transfiguration of Christ to a small group of frightened disciples, did not merely transform a moment; it was a moment that transformed reality and thus, the whole of life.  Writes Loder, "Moments of transforming significance radically reopen the question of reality."

 When the disciples came to the end of their mountaintop encounter and looked up, they saw only Jesus.  Moses and Elijah were no longer there; the cloud that enveloped them disappeared and the heavens ceased to speak.  But the divine Jesus was fully and humanly present to them, the glimpse of God in that transforming moment on the mountain a radical reality that would shape all of life. 

I continue to learn that there will be certain times when truth must dazzle gradually, until it is given its proper place.  And at other times I will, more than likely, find myself moved nearly to blindness as I encounter more than I have the eyes yet to see.  Sometimes, like Peter, I will probably interpret these moments of transcendence imperfectly.  Yet, I am convicted to believe that God is at work even in the deciphering, and in the final examination, the content of my transforming moments is Jesus alone, the transfigured one, the transforming one, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. 

Is My Future Determined

It was not the first time that I had been faced with such statements, “I guess it was his time to go.  But I warned him not to ride that road. He told his wife he could handle it. She had a feeling that something bad would happen. The only thing is, why would God take him when he has four young children?” Questions of choice and destiny have been raised once again in my thinking after I left my friend who is grieving after another of his close friends was killed in a motorcycle accident. Did I give Him the best answer that I could? I ask myself, do I exercise choice, or has everything already been decided?  Is my future determined or free?  I must confess that these questions have crisscrossed in my thinking numerous times in my life. But for the most part, I have left them lying in a mental filing cabinet resulting from the fact that the mental gymnastics had always left me confused and yet somewhat disappointed. A couple of my friends insist that nothing takes God by surprise.  On the other hand, other friends reject the kind of fatalism that is seen in so many parts of this world.

In my prayerful and intent study of the question I find that the problem with it, as presented, is that it is not nearly difficult enough. To truly appreciate the magnitude of what I’m asking, I must first deal with an even greater question.  And it is this: If time stopped immediately-right now.  What would I be thinking?  What would I be feeling? The answer is nothing.

In the absence of time, I would not be able to think or feel or do.  Everything would be frozen.  As an example: people sometimes complain that I speak too quickly—the problem being that there is not sufficient time for them to think about what has been said.  I always try to cheer, or is excuse myself by saying that at least I have said something for them to think about!  But it is a fair criticism because in the absence of sufficient time they cannot think things through. I know that from personal experience.  In the absence of time altogether, however, I cannot even begin to think, as there is literally no time to think in.

My understanding, as a believer in Christ, is that I live and have my existence in a space-time continuum.  "[We] belong to eternity stranded in time," observes Michael Card in his lyric of Joy of the Journey. This also means that before God created there was no time; in other words, time is not co-eternal with God.  But my faith also attests that God was a thinking, feeling, doing Being even before He created.  I can’t even imagine a Being who is able to think in the absence of time?  Yet the God I profess not only exists outside of time, but thinks and acts in the absence of time. 

Just writing this makes me feel overwhelmed.  And so it should, I suppose.  Whenever I think about the person of God, I think I should rightly feel that I have come across something truly awesome.  And maybe this is part of the problem. I don’t find myself faced with a logical contradiction here.  Rather, I am faced with the reality of what it means for God to exist, for God to be God.  Since I am only able to think in time, and thus, God confronts me with choices: "Choose this day whom you will serve," "choose life" and so on (Joshua 24:15; Deuteronomy 30:19).  But God, who is outside of time, sees all of history stretched out before Him.  The problem comes, therefore, when the attempt is made to confine God within time.  But doesn’t need to be the case.  As a Christian, a proper understanding of the tension drives me back both to God's divine nature and to my knees, acknowledging how wonderful God is.

This is also helping my deeper understanding with the issue of eternal life.  I have met people, when confronted with the idea of eternity; find the idea frightening, tedious, or absurd.  One individual asked me, “What could one possibly do with all of that time?” Once again, I think that the dilemma arose because she was captive both to the passage of time and too small a view of who God actually is.  At the time, I don’t think I really had the full answer myself when ask: if God truly knows all things, then why did God create knowing that we would experience pain in a fallen world? I understand now a perfect answer is: God did not create the world and then think of a plan to rescue it.  The book of Revelation depicts that the Lamb was slain before the foundations of the world were laid.  This does not mean that the crucifixion took place in our space-time history before creation (there was no space-history for it to take place in).  What it does mean is that even before God created, God also knew the cost—the suffering of his own Son—to redeem creation and unite us with the Father.  God didn't count that cost too great—and hence Christians sing of God's amazing grace.

The next time i visit with my grieving friend I'm going to tell him that the best answer I can give his is: I've concluded since the last time we've talked tthat God is big enough to be able to say, "I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 9:11).  There is no hope without a secure future, and the future is frightening in the absence of hope.  Only God is big enough to bring these two things together—hope and a future—and this is what God has done for me ……and you, my friend.

Living A Second Naivete

Bettyann and Claire are “fans” if not right down intrigued and captivated with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea now many occasions I have found them snuggled up with each other, and/or shushing my comments on entering the room while engrossed, watching the movie.  At any rate, there is a point when Austen describes Lydia as the naïve youngest of the Bennet daughters, and is not intended as a compliment:  "Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless." Naïve is generally a description I have never held proudly. I have been prone to see naïveté in its unflattering light, not wanting the description to make the shortlist of my character traits.  But I have recently discovered that the word in its original context is not so narrowly characterized.  In fact, the word naïve is derived from the Latin word "natural," a word which remains a synonym I had not recognized.  True naïveté can thus describe one who shows absence of artificiality or unaffected simplicity of nature, one who has no hidden agendas or duplicitous motives.  At this definition, it seems much less an insult and more a quality to which, at this age, I might aspire.

One of my favorite authors used the word "naïve" in this broader sense to describe his relationship with Scripture as he grew from child to writer and lecturer.  He introduces three stages, the first of which he describes as the stage of naiveté in the unencumbered, unaffected sense of the word.  Through the trusting eyes and faith of a child, many, first hear the stories of creation, flood, and miracles with minds that understand the world and everything in it as God's.  At some point I have observed this in all my grandchildren.  Of late, especially Braydon who jis ust turning six and somewhat stiill Claire just turned ten. They are absorbing life with uninhibited excitement, the stage of naiveté that allows the imagination to hear and see in ways, I often cannot.  The result is a deep response to the world within the Bible, which is seen to fit perfectly into the world.  Every chance I get I like to tweak the sense that the Bible is a story in which they and I are very much participants.   

Unfortunately, if naïveté marks a state of unaffected simplicity, the world of a child is quickly marked by that which complicates and pollutes.  Thus, the second stage of life with the Bible is often a stage of critical awareness.  As we are exposed more and more to a disharmonious world where people disagree, sides are chosen, and things are inconsistent, our minds grow increasing skeptical.  In this stage many become critically attune to the differences between the world as they know it and the world of the Bible.  I recognized this disharmony as life takes turns in ways that jarred childlike stability and left my oldest granddaughter, Grace,  unsure of things that once seemed constant. I noticed it most when she was a preteen and sometimes now with teen relationships.  I know that I had difficulty in knowing how to process (of course I didn’t use that term 55 years ago) during my adolescent years. I distinctly remember feeling somewhat punished by God at times.  Adding to this sense of dissonance, inconsistencies between stories at school and stories in church seemed irreconcilable.  Like many, I walked with a sense of mourning, confused that the Bible seemed misleading, angry at the God of false adventures, and guilty for turning my back,  occasionally, on the one I had come to know. I am so proud of my grandchildren’s parent’s sensitivity, guidance, and encouragement during this stage of their lives..      

Though stages of development are necessary in any formation of lasting faith, I believe stages one and two are literally worldviews away from each other.  Jesus alludes to the massive difference in his proclamation: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).  In the theocentric mindset of a child, God is the great Adventurer and they are participants being led through a story.  God is the one who remains at the center, while creation, including them, surrounds its creator.  But as children grow into adulthood and become more aligned with the culture around them, the center often shifts.  Self-centered or what is called anthropocentric minds see themselves at the center, while the world, including God, surrounds them.  Sadly, this is the mindset where so many of my midlife and long life friends remain, replacing the old, old story with the insistence that the storyteller is "me".  

With a great deal of hope and grace I will , with the help of God, continue to live with discovery and lead my grandchildren to discovering that the story is far bigger than myself and themselves and will know how to tell it. Like God's response from the whirlwind to a questioning, anguished Job—"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"—I rediscover the one at the center, and it isn't myself."  In this stage of second naiveté, I believe the Bible can be engaged with awareness and imagination, and a greater sense of devotion, because I have come once again to see the God to whom it points.  God's Word tells the story that brings me to the Storyteller.  Thus, I can come readily to the Bible with my questions, doubts, and inconsistencies because I am approaching a Person.  While the words of Scripture are always true, so they are always pointing to the Word beyond themselves:  "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3).  In the second naïveté, I can find myself before the one who makes it possible to return to the unhindered sincerity of Claire or Braydon.  May God help me afresh  discover a God who speaks, the Word who draws near, and a Storyteller who beckons me to participate.  May God help me in modeling these discoveries to my grandchildren, as well.

Lessons from A Place Called Forgetful Green

Wanting to satisfy my appetite with a new subject of reading and a bit nostalgic, on a morning a week or so ago, I went to my bookshelf and drew out: Retrieving the Natural Law: A Return to Moral First Things by J. Daryl Charles. It has been at least five years since I first read the book. A morning or two later, reading further and deeper, I began to reflect of years gone by, to a time participating in chaplaincy ministry and having the privilege of dealing with bioethical issues. I began realizing, most poignantly, today, that there is truth in the idea that the moral values I truly live by, remain best discovered when acted out over the highest cliffs —those thresholds of life, death, and weighted decision—or else the very lowest bluffs, those places where comfort lures boredom and indifference.  In the spaces where it is hardest to remember doctrine, standards, and philosophy, I discover the battles of moral decision are truly waged.  In other words, it has always been far easier to secure my ethical moorings in the university or in church than it has been in the turbulent hallways of the Emergency Room, alongside the Hospice patient or the consuming distraction of affluence.

This aspect of memory is one that Christian ethicists address and the God of scripture lauds.  "Fix it in mind, take it to heart... Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come" (Isaiah 46:8-10).  Remembering is to be an active pursuit:  "These truths I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates" (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).  Not only is it true that what I remember affects who I am, but what I remember deeply, what has been ingrained into my very identity, is far more likely to be recalled when crisis, pain, or comfort make it hard to remember everything else. 

In John Bunyan's abiding allegory, Pilgrim's Progress, Great Heart points to a place called "Forgetful Green" and says to Christian's son, "That place is the most dangerous place in all these parts."  Building on this imagery, Allen Verhey in his writing Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life; describes the temptation of forgetfulness in "the Forgetful Green of health and in the great medical powers to heal," as well as in the "Forgetful Straits of pain and suffering and in the final powerlessness of medicine." That is to say, if I will not actively remember the story in which I participated—the moments where God has acted mightily, the times I have learned in tears, the reality of my immortality and the autonomy of God even in this—then in sickness and in health I will forget.

It seems to me, much of the secular world, and God forbid, the church world has already forgotten and actually bids me to forget as well.  In an article of Christianity Today, Leon Kass argues that "victory over mortality is the unstated but implicit goal of modern medical science." Having experienced the unwelcomed surrender to Hospice in the medical treatment of hundreds of individuals, I can relate to the sentiment. Though I stood, sat, knelt with them in their home or care facility where death was a daily reality and the prognosis grim, all of us were devastated and even angry at the doctor's recommendation of Hospice care.  I remember, so well, at the one word, “cancer”, we were forced to admit what we were trying to ignore.  Yet this was arguably one of the last gifts any of us received.  I, personally, was forced to remember the hope I had long professed but altogether misplaced in the halls of medicine, the classroom of theology, studies of Clinical Pastoral Counseling, or corridors of church.

In a conversation with recently retired registered nurse about medical ethics, I was surprised to hear her comparison of her work as a nurse in the hospital as opposed to work in a nursing home.  She said surprisingly there really was not much of a difference in the attitudes toward death and dying. Though in a place where patients were far more openly facing their final days, death was still ignored by patients and families, care was not addressed in terms of providing for a good death, and aging and dying were realities slow to set in.  In fact, even the terminology and goals of treatment were still focused on curing as opposed to palliative care.  As nurses they were required to write up plans for improvement for each resident, and despite illness or age very few had "do not resuscitate" orders. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I spend the rest of my life trying to forget the reality of death, it follows that being near death would not necessarily change my vision or jolt my memory.  As Kass observes in his writing, Go Gently into That Good Night, "In parallel with medical progress, a new moral sensibility has developed that serves precisely medicine's crusade against mortality: Anything is permitted if it saves life, cures disease, prevents death."  But, in my opinion the incoherence of this medical philosophy shouts of the need for some hard questions and a call to memory.  Is any part of my obsession with youth a celebration of life or a denial of life's end?  What does a good death mean for me?  Does it involve acceptance of my immortality?  And one who professes to live as a Christian believer, one who follows the One who died and was buried, how am I living counter culturally?

In this world confused about life and death, am I a person who can mourn and lament, who can weep at gravesides of friends and with grieving families, who can decline treatment when it ceases to give life, and embrace death when it draws near?  How do I look at living and dieing as one who follows the one who rose above the seeming victory of the grave?  I think this is the image I would do well to remember with all that is in me, from where I stand today at turning 70.