Last Saturday a few people, 200 million, were supposed to disappear and the rest of us were going to have to live with more of a mess than we already have. I have no joy about Harold's mistake. The poor guy seems to be really invested in this. I wouldn't want to be his dog. I might get kicked.
What I do find fascinating is the continuing focus of so many on dooms-day scenarios. I don't get it. Don't people have enough to pay attention to without trying to figure out when the whole thing is going to come crashing down? Maybe that's why there's so much interest in this stuff. Maybe we don't want to deal with all the normality. We'd rather be seeing beyond to the incarnation of 'what if.' Maybe it takes the pressure off.
Some of it is a mob scene. It's why lemmings keep going, everybody else is running, I'd better join. But I think there is a seed of yearning in this whole thing. And that interests me. I think we all would like to see through to something else. I think we'd all like to know, without a doubt that there is more than chance and darkness out there. Good ol' Harold with the huge ears hit on that with his formulae and his droning account of the end. The failure of his particular vision won't make the yearning go away.
I respect the yearning. I think yearners are the wise ones. But our job isn't to solve this conundrum. Our job is to reach with all the power that's within us toward... What? I guess that's why I got into this particular line of work so long ago. This is our particular version of WWF Wrestling. The rule is hang on and be willing to be amazed.
Who knows? We may evaporate at any moment.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Living on the Rift
Being Christian is strange. There are some moments when it feels like we are called to live straddling a fault line. The execution of Osama Ben Laden is one of those moments. This incarnation business forces us to take our human nature seriously. We can’t dismiss it as wrong or bad. Having a god that lived as we do, complete with tears, laughter, humiliation, and glory compels us to see each follicle of this life as full of potential, even the ugly and the tragic parts.
On the other hand the Christian vision includes ideals that extend beyond any reasonable hope of actualization. Beating our swords into plowshares isn’t going to happen this week. But it was part of the foundations upon which Jesus built his theology and ethic. He refused to deny that vision of peace even as he was tortured and executed by the powers and principalities that refused to pay any attention to the truth and the potential that vision indicates. The peaceable kingdom, the suffering servant, the mercy and love of God these all speak of a way of living that demands of us more than survival, dominance, vengeance, and other coin that purchase such ideals of the world as wealth, military might, and political power.
So, how do we live practically, in the world, while we follow a Lord who refused to be defined by its demands? By His behavior, we cannot live in judgment, we must live in the hope of redemption and reconciliation. That’s what He did.
See what I mean? One foot firmly planted on each side of the rift. And I think that’s where we are meant to live. When we get too comfortable on either side of the paradox, we’re not taking the world or Christ’s vision seriously.
Joy over the execution of Ben Laden is allowing ourselves to be seduced by vengeance. To deny the power of evil he wielded and his potential to wield more is to be naïve. So we struggle, we argue, we pray. And day by day we seek to follow in the footsteps of that crazy guy who broke rules and confused us and demanded that we be willing to live each day like it’s holy. Which it is.
On the other hand the Christian vision includes ideals that extend beyond any reasonable hope of actualization. Beating our swords into plowshares isn’t going to happen this week. But it was part of the foundations upon which Jesus built his theology and ethic. He refused to deny that vision of peace even as he was tortured and executed by the powers and principalities that refused to pay any attention to the truth and the potential that vision indicates. The peaceable kingdom, the suffering servant, the mercy and love of God these all speak of a way of living that demands of us more than survival, dominance, vengeance, and other coin that purchase such ideals of the world as wealth, military might, and political power.
So, how do we live practically, in the world, while we follow a Lord who refused to be defined by its demands? By His behavior, we cannot live in judgment, we must live in the hope of redemption and reconciliation. That’s what He did.
See what I mean? One foot firmly planted on each side of the rift. And I think that’s where we are meant to live. When we get too comfortable on either side of the paradox, we’re not taking the world or Christ’s vision seriously.
Joy over the execution of Ben Laden is allowing ourselves to be seduced by vengeance. To deny the power of evil he wielded and his potential to wield more is to be naïve. So we struggle, we argue, we pray. And day by day we seek to follow in the footsteps of that crazy guy who broke rules and confused us and demanded that we be willing to live each day like it’s holy. Which it is.
Monday, March 7, 2011
In Like a Lion
March is a month of magic. I don’t mean making hankies come out of your mouth or coins disappear, I mean deep magic, transformation. It’s a wild month. Plans are chancy. What looks like a pleasant day, has the bite of winter. And sometimes winds, fierce blasting winds carry the texture of May in their rush.
Then there are the daffodils. When February is asserting its miserable gray domination, green tendrils refuse to pay attention to the grip of Winter that seems so consistent. They literally crack the brittle ground. March belongs to daffodils. A warm March is inundated by their yellow proclamation to shed the prison garb of winter and claim color again.
I’m ready for March. I’d better be. It’s here.
Then there are the daffodils. When February is asserting its miserable gray domination, green tendrils refuse to pay attention to the grip of Winter that seems so consistent. They literally crack the brittle ground. March belongs to daffodils. A warm March is inundated by their yellow proclamation to shed the prison garb of winter and claim color again.
I’m ready for March. I’d better be. It’s here.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Twitter this!
Psalm 2
The recent unrest in the Arab world is challenging the autocratic vice grip on millions of people who have lived with its pressure and restriction for decades, some would say centuries. Autocrats have no esteem for change. As Joe Klein said in Time Magazine, “They [autocrats] have an unrealistic view of their own indispensability.” The media revolution of recent years has changed the rules that have worked so well for so long. Suddenly people who protest cannot be separated from the herd and suddenly disappear in the night. They cannot be intimidated because they out number the intimidators. And they know a watching world is aware of them at every turn. Yet the rulers of this present age seem to think that in spite of all the changes, the old rules will work. They are surprised, defensive, aghast that these upstarts would dare to demand something as outrageous as rights, a say in what happens, freedom.
At the core of much of this unrest is not a technology of weapons or terror, but the ability to communicate with others, even millions at the touch of a key or a screen. Most of the time it’s put to trivial use, listing condiments as often as hopes and fears. But in this case the social media have become pathways toward connections between people never dreamed of by the generations that lived under the thumbs of rulers with less imagination than the willingness to insist that the past be the only reality available.
We see ourselves as beyond all this. We are people with a history of liberty and justice for all. Yet as the Psalmist contemplated the patterns of political power-broking of his day and lifted up the transcendent power of the living God and the useless posturing of the wielders of earthly power, he saw the distance between their sense of authority and the truth of their vulnerability.
If we as the people of God are to be anything but silly in a false security because of our slogans and our flags, if we are to have something other than an unrealistic view of our own indispensability, then we need be humble and willing to make room for the new among us, however strange it might seem. We must learn to honor each other as the autocrats obviously refuse to. For that is God’s will. All else will fall.
The recent unrest in the Arab world is challenging the autocratic vice grip on millions of people who have lived with its pressure and restriction for decades, some would say centuries. Autocrats have no esteem for change. As Joe Klein said in Time Magazine, “They [autocrats] have an unrealistic view of their own indispensability.” The media revolution of recent years has changed the rules that have worked so well for so long. Suddenly people who protest cannot be separated from the herd and suddenly disappear in the night. They cannot be intimidated because they out number the intimidators. And they know a watching world is aware of them at every turn. Yet the rulers of this present age seem to think that in spite of all the changes, the old rules will work. They are surprised, defensive, aghast that these upstarts would dare to demand something as outrageous as rights, a say in what happens, freedom.
At the core of much of this unrest is not a technology of weapons or terror, but the ability to communicate with others, even millions at the touch of a key or a screen. Most of the time it’s put to trivial use, listing condiments as often as hopes and fears. But in this case the social media have become pathways toward connections between people never dreamed of by the generations that lived under the thumbs of rulers with less imagination than the willingness to insist that the past be the only reality available.
We see ourselves as beyond all this. We are people with a history of liberty and justice for all. Yet as the Psalmist contemplated the patterns of political power-broking of his day and lifted up the transcendent power of the living God and the useless posturing of the wielders of earthly power, he saw the distance between their sense of authority and the truth of their vulnerability.
If we as the people of God are to be anything but silly in a false security because of our slogans and our flags, if we are to have something other than an unrealistic view of our own indispensability, then we need be humble and willing to make room for the new among us, however strange it might seem. We must learn to honor each other as the autocrats obviously refuse to. For that is God’s will. All else will fall.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Fear
At the end of one of my classes at the university some kids wanted to talk about fear. I told them there's nothing wrong with fear. It's normal to be afraid of some things. If you aren't, you're a little off. Fear is a response connected with self preservation and an acknowledgement of our limits. But fear that immobilizes us, that creeps over into our capability, that prevents us from action is anxiety. That is something we have to work on.
I quoted Frank Herbert. In his book 'Dune,' Herbert creates a mantra about fear that characterizes that kind of immobilizing fear. "Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death. I will face my fear and let it pass through me and over me and beyond me and I will turn to see where it has gone and there will be nothing left in its path but myself."
They liked that. I told them I'd give them extra credit if they memorized it. That really scared them.
I quoted Frank Herbert. In his book 'Dune,' Herbert creates a mantra about fear that characterizes that kind of immobilizing fear. "Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death. I will face my fear and let it pass through me and over me and beyond me and I will turn to see where it has gone and there will be nothing left in its path but myself."
They liked that. I told them I'd give them extra credit if they memorized it. That really scared them.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I found Jesus, I hope
One morning at an ungodly hour, we and a mob of other crazy people traipsed through the streets of Asbury Park to watch a demolition company blow down a building. Demolition party!! Never been to one? Ought to try it. 3-2-1 CRACK-CRACK- CRACK- RUMBLE-BOOM! Yeah! Whoopie! “Let’s go home for breakfast.” Kind of reminded me of Christmas. Anticipation, ungodly hour, BOOM! ‘Let’s eat.’
As we traipsed back to the food I spied a bumper sticker. “I found Jesus! He was behind the sofa all the time.” It was another thing to giggle about on that brisk morning. But lately this bit of a giggle has come back to me in a more ominous fashion, a ghost of Christmas past.
My way of putting together manger scenes for the season is really geeky. It’s a process that unfolds throughout Advent, four weeks before Christmas. Mary and Joseph are on the road with the donkey. Angels flock around them. The shepherds are out in the hills with the sheep. A few of the angels are over there, keeping track of developments. The Magi are somewhere to the East. They don’t arrive until Epiphany, that is January 6th. By that time the shepherds are back in the hills. The baby Jesus is nowhere to be found until Christmas morning. Then He shows up in the manger. I know. Who’s got the time or energy to go through all of that? Hey, I’m a Christmas freak. You got a problem with that?
This year I’m taking care of four manger scenes, two in the church and two here at home. The same rules apply. So I set up Mary’s and Joseph’s on the road with the donkey’s, gathered the angels, etc. The babyies got hidden. Everything’s honkey-dorey. Then this week, Christmas week, I went to find the babies I’d stashed three weeks ago. I found one where I’d left it and then drew a blank. Somewhere in the singed and melted corners of my mind there is a memory of the other three hiding places. Uhhhh….
Now you see why the bumper sticker came back to me? It stopped being so funny. My father did that one year with a few Easter eggs. He forgot where he hid them. We found one in June. Whew! The smell led us to it. But the poor kid wouldn’t even offer that clue. By the time I tripped over the baby, he’d be a teenager. This would be a cute antic dote, adding to the Christmas lore of our family, ‘Somewhere in the house there rests a baby Jesus, waiting to be found.’ But the church manger scenes were going to look kind of weird without their focal point.
So I started the search. And in the process realized this is a very appropriate thing for us all to be doing. The shepherds did it. How many garage doors did they pound on looking for the kid in the manger? The Magi did it. It took them a while. Pretty poor intelligence work for the Persian NSA, if you ask me. So, now there was another player in the mix, the Shrewsberian Pastor, searching for the babe.
So far I found three of them. I’ve still got two days. Yes, I’ve already looked behind the sofa. But there’s no way I’m getting a camel.
As we traipsed back to the food I spied a bumper sticker. “I found Jesus! He was behind the sofa all the time.” It was another thing to giggle about on that brisk morning. But lately this bit of a giggle has come back to me in a more ominous fashion, a ghost of Christmas past.
My way of putting together manger scenes for the season is really geeky. It’s a process that unfolds throughout Advent, four weeks before Christmas. Mary and Joseph are on the road with the donkey. Angels flock around them. The shepherds are out in the hills with the sheep. A few of the angels are over there, keeping track of developments. The Magi are somewhere to the East. They don’t arrive until Epiphany, that is January 6th. By that time the shepherds are back in the hills. The baby Jesus is nowhere to be found until Christmas morning. Then He shows up in the manger. I know. Who’s got the time or energy to go through all of that? Hey, I’m a Christmas freak. You got a problem with that?
This year I’m taking care of four manger scenes, two in the church and two here at home. The same rules apply. So I set up Mary’s and Joseph’s on the road with the donkey’s, gathered the angels, etc. The babyies got hidden. Everything’s honkey-dorey. Then this week, Christmas week, I went to find the babies I’d stashed three weeks ago. I found one where I’d left it and then drew a blank. Somewhere in the singed and melted corners of my mind there is a memory of the other three hiding places. Uhhhh….
Now you see why the bumper sticker came back to me? It stopped being so funny. My father did that one year with a few Easter eggs. He forgot where he hid them. We found one in June. Whew! The smell led us to it. But the poor kid wouldn’t even offer that clue. By the time I tripped over the baby, he’d be a teenager. This would be a cute antic dote, adding to the Christmas lore of our family, ‘Somewhere in the house there rests a baby Jesus, waiting to be found.’ But the church manger scenes were going to look kind of weird without their focal point.
So I started the search. And in the process realized this is a very appropriate thing for us all to be doing. The shepherds did it. How many garage doors did they pound on looking for the kid in the manger? The Magi did it. It took them a while. Pretty poor intelligence work for the Persian NSA, if you ask me. So, now there was another player in the mix, the Shrewsberian Pastor, searching for the babe.
So far I found three of them. I’ve still got two days. Yes, I’ve already looked behind the sofa. But there’s no way I’m getting a camel.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Mitzvah
On the third Sunday in Advent my wife and I have the congregation over to our home for coffee hour. The Deacons do the cookies and the serving. We just do the house. Now, you need to understand that I’ve been collecting angels for years, decades. Somehow Santa’s got thrown into the mix, so the process of decorating for Christmas at the McKirachan house is a little over the top. Hundreds of God’s emissaries in every attitude and function adorn every nook and most crannies in our home. The Santa’s from all over the world take up any space left over and lately nutcrackers of all sizes and genres are infesting the den. Christmas is a tsunami around here. We always get a live tree, nine feet tall, not including the golden angel atop. This year I put 1200 lights on it before the ornaments. Yup, I’m nuts. But that’s Christmas.
We usually get a jump on the whole thing from Thanksgiving on. It’s part of my Advent meditation. This year, no such luck. The church is very busy, for all the best reasons. All of a sudden it was deadline city. We had to get it done, now. So we did.
By morning of the Joy Sunday, I was patrolling to make sure none of the Magi had left the radiator to the east of the cresh. Wise guys have a way of getting ahead of themselves. I went out on the front porch to make sure the lights were on and there lay a Styrofoam coffin, about five feet long and two and a half wide. There was a simple note on the lid. “For David.”
“Chris!” She came to see if I’d broken something. “Look.” Her response was less than illuminating, “What is it?” Mine was equally insightful, “I don’t have a clue.” “Looks like somebody sent us steaks.” With that she retreated into the house, leaving me to figure out what to do. I carry a pocket knife for such moments. I split the packing tape sealing the box. The lid creaked as I opened it.
There lay, face down in the packing an angel, a very large angel. I lifted it out. No light weight this one. Plaster by the heft. I staggered through the house carrying it, again yelling for my poor wife. Her eyes mirrored mine. “Who? What? How?” My sentiments exactly.
I doubt we’ll ever know how this winged messenger made it to our porch or who lugged it there. It’s a mitzvah, a gift given without letting the recipient know who the giver is. It’s a grace. “For David,” is all they left of their sentiment. The gift stands for itself, right inside our front door. The angel’s hands are extended palms up. Giving? Receiving? Welcoming? It is now part of our Christmas story.
“And the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” God bless us every one.
We usually get a jump on the whole thing from Thanksgiving on. It’s part of my Advent meditation. This year, no such luck. The church is very busy, for all the best reasons. All of a sudden it was deadline city. We had to get it done, now. So we did.
By morning of the Joy Sunday, I was patrolling to make sure none of the Magi had left the radiator to the east of the cresh. Wise guys have a way of getting ahead of themselves. I went out on the front porch to make sure the lights were on and there lay a Styrofoam coffin, about five feet long and two and a half wide. There was a simple note on the lid. “For David.”
“Chris!” She came to see if I’d broken something. “Look.” Her response was less than illuminating, “What is it?” Mine was equally insightful, “I don’t have a clue.” “Looks like somebody sent us steaks.” With that she retreated into the house, leaving me to figure out what to do. I carry a pocket knife for such moments. I split the packing tape sealing the box. The lid creaked as I opened it.
There lay, face down in the packing an angel, a very large angel. I lifted it out. No light weight this one. Plaster by the heft. I staggered through the house carrying it, again yelling for my poor wife. Her eyes mirrored mine. “Who? What? How?” My sentiments exactly.
I doubt we’ll ever know how this winged messenger made it to our porch or who lugged it there. It’s a mitzvah, a gift given without letting the recipient know who the giver is. It’s a grace. “For David,” is all they left of their sentiment. The gift stands for itself, right inside our front door. The angel’s hands are extended palms up. Giving? Receiving? Welcoming? It is now part of our Christmas story.
“And the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” God bless us every one.
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