Out of Darkness
Ephesians 2
I spent some time in Africa. I was young. The kind of young that is still impressed in the open mouthed, eyes wide, stand still and stare way. I lived in a monastery out beyond the end of the bus lines in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We got to know a lot of people where they lived, by name, who they were. It was there I first ran into paganism. It stopped me as cold as seeing my first pack of hyenas roaming around outside the walls of the compound. The thing that blew my mind about the worship of small gods was the terror of the worshipper. These folks lived defensively. The gods were their enemies, very, very powerful enemies, bullies that rolled over them like a motorcycle gang over children in a playground. If these powerful beings noticed you it was not a good thing. The only reason you worshipped was to get on their good side. It was no guarantee they’d be nice to you. Gods have bad hair days. But when and if you came to their attention, maybe, if you shed some blood and offered some sacrifice, maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t swat you like the bug you were to them.
These folk saw these young Americans as allies of another god. The guys in the black dresses, the Christian Monks were magicians. They had given their lives to be servants of this Christian god. He wasn’t very nice. No god was. But he seemed to be very powerful. And we young Americans were allies of these men in black. We were living proof of the power of this not very nice god. Look how big we were, six feet tall, though we were considered barbarians, uncouth at best.
I wondered about this one day to a woman we knew who knew enough English and some Italian words to communicate when assisted by the high art of charades. I wondered why she didn’t consider worshiping the Christian god if He was so powerful. Her eyes got big and she shook her head very slowly, hunching and looking over her shoulder. She leaned forward and whispered to me, “They listen. They will take my children.” She cried and then told me she would live. “Each day without death is life.”
I still have dreams about her, hunched and whispering, “…alienated…, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
We have a gift. Too often we forget. We forget about the covenants of promise, sealed in God’s blood, not curses sealed in ours. Thanks be to God. Amen
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Bonsai
Thoughts
There are few things I do that can be said to be classical disciplines. I sing. But I don’t have the time to pursue the discipline of classical voice, or the time to hook up with a choir to do music that constantly raises my game. My writing is a lot like my reading, not very classical or consistently disciplined.
But Bonsai is classical in its very nature. “Trees in saucers” have been around for a couple thousand years, and the maintenance of them demands discipline if I’m going to keep them alive. I’ve lost a few because of lapses. Years of work down the tubes because I wasn’t disciplined. Not to mention the loss of a life.
Anyway, loses aside, this is a rather unique presence in my existence. It is a sanctuary from the frenetic norm of my day to day and it demands a focus and an awareness of the needs of another. In short it gets me out of myself and forces me to slow down.
Every once in a while I bump into another bonsai’er. They consistently light up to know that there is another weirdo in the world that sinks into this small world of trees and moss and rocks and crockery. We talk about what a pain cedars are and have we had any luck with flowering trees and what kind of fertilizer we use and stones. Stones are very important. It’s one of those moments that you tend to remember, relationships built on common interest.
But the relationship that matters, the real center of the whole thing is the tree. You get to know something when you spend time with it and watch it and partner with it. But this can’t be compared with a human relationship. I really think when we do the first sit down with alien species, the ones from out there some were, there should be a bonsai’er in our delegation. They’ve spent a lot of time in communion with another species, like years.
It’s a lot different than having a dog or a cat. But that’s a different story. Just ask Sam.
Thoughts
There are few things I do that can be said to be classical disciplines. I sing. But I don’t have the time to pursue the discipline of classical voice, or the time to hook up with a choir to do music that constantly raises my game. My writing is a lot like my reading, not very classical or consistently disciplined.
But Bonsai is classical in its very nature. “Trees in saucers” have been around for a couple thousand years, and the maintenance of them demands discipline if I’m going to keep them alive. I’ve lost a few because of lapses. Years of work down the tubes because I wasn’t disciplined. Not to mention the loss of a life.
Anyway, loses aside, this is a rather unique presence in my existence. It is a sanctuary from the frenetic norm of my day to day and it demands a focus and an awareness of the needs of another. In short it gets me out of myself and forces me to slow down.
Every once in a while I bump into another bonsai’er. They consistently light up to know that there is another weirdo in the world that sinks into this small world of trees and moss and rocks and crockery. We talk about what a pain cedars are and have we had any luck with flowering trees and what kind of fertilizer we use and stones. Stones are very important. It’s one of those moments that you tend to remember, relationships built on common interest.
But the relationship that matters, the real center of the whole thing is the tree. You get to know something when you spend time with it and watch it and partner with it. But this can’t be compared with a human relationship. I really think when we do the first sit down with alien species, the ones from out there some were, there should be a bonsai’er in our delegation. They’ve spent a lot of time in communion with another species, like years.
It’s a lot different than having a dog or a cat. But that’s a different story. Just ask Sam.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Demons
Putting together the sermon for Sunday, I stumbled on a presupposition that sticks between my teeth. This whole thing of Evil is dismissed in one way or another by the mythology of our culture. So I was forced to give a preamble to my sermon that was probably the most Philosophically Metaphysical that I've gotten in the pulpit for a while.
I'm writing a book right now, a novel that deals with Evil. It's a bear, or should I say a beast to finish it. I'm somewhere near the fourty-fifth chapter and as I come closer to wrapping it up, the laws of relaltivity have begun to take effect. I get shorter and shorter and infinitely heavy, or something like that. When I get the thing done and move into the editing phase, it will be a grand relief. Then I might get into this evil thing from a more philosophic perspective. Nobody else seems to be doing it. They're too busy twittering.
In some ways I think we don't have much of a perspective on evil because we don't have much of a perspective on anything that we can't touch, measure, or quanitfy. So, in some ways the labor to get a grip on this beasty would be an effort to lift our sights out of the technological and into a grander vista.
I know, I know, if you don't talk about it, it becomes less real. Tell that to the predator that follows you in the night. Said in less creepy terms, most things we ignore end up having power over us. We've all had a few of those.
Don't worry, I won't attempt any of this in this light hearted arena. But I might offer bits for reaction. Such a down to earth dialogue might be fun. Or in philosophically metaphysical language, "A diologic approach has often proved fruitful when the participants' presumptive limits can be put aside for the sake of approaching a new synthesis."
Okey dokey?
I'm writing a book right now, a novel that deals with Evil. It's a bear, or should I say a beast to finish it. I'm somewhere near the fourty-fifth chapter and as I come closer to wrapping it up, the laws of relaltivity have begun to take effect. I get shorter and shorter and infinitely heavy, or something like that. When I get the thing done and move into the editing phase, it will be a grand relief. Then I might get into this evil thing from a more philosophic perspective. Nobody else seems to be doing it. They're too busy twittering.
In some ways I think we don't have much of a perspective on evil because we don't have much of a perspective on anything that we can't touch, measure, or quanitfy. So, in some ways the labor to get a grip on this beasty would be an effort to lift our sights out of the technological and into a grander vista.
I know, I know, if you don't talk about it, it becomes less real. Tell that to the predator that follows you in the night. Said in less creepy terms, most things we ignore end up having power over us. We've all had a few of those.
Don't worry, I won't attempt any of this in this light hearted arena. But I might offer bits for reaction. Such a down to earth dialogue might be fun. Or in philosophically metaphysical language, "A diologic approach has often proved fruitful when the participants' presumptive limits can be put aside for the sake of approaching a new synthesis."
Okey dokey?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Presbytery
My family’s been Presbyterian since it became impractical to be Druids. I grew up with it around me like air. But in the wisdom of my youth I decided that if I was going to do this theology thing, I ought to shop. I don’t know if I was looking for low bids or what. I attended a seminary/graduate school hooked up with the University of California at Berkeley. As the Presbyterian San Francisco Theological Seminary it was one of twelve such schools in the Graduate Theological Union. I took classes in them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, Baptist, etc. It was interesting. Lots of different spins going on all at the same time. Interestingly, the more I wandered, the more I gravitated back to good old Calvinism.
So, thirty odd years later, I’m looking back on a career. Pretty wild, huh? I’ve worked all this time in a handful of churches, using a theological perspective that my ancestors helped build. Nothing like coming full circle.
The night before last we had a Presbytery meeting. All the ministers from about fifty churches and lay representatives to balance them meet periodically to do the business of this governing body. Conflict simmered beneath a crust of parliamentary function. It was more fun than chicken pox, but not much. Differences in perspectives and attitudes coupled with a power vacuum have yielded a lack of trust and loss of common vision. It’s a microcosm of our culture. The gorilla in the room refused us to let us get much done unless we operated at a level so shallow as to make the meeting nearly meaningless. At one especially difficult juncture, after a hasty conference with my wife, I got up and commented on the presence of the gorilla, and in an effort to deal with our commonality invited the whole presbytery to our house for a party in October. They laughed. But I waded in and finally convinced them Chris and I meant business. Hospitality created the church. Maybe Hospitality can help it now.
I love the church. I love its scholarship and insistence on self criticism. I love its inclusiveness that demands an openness uncomfortable in a polarized society. I love its unflinching approach to suffering and its willingness to stand in the face of injustice. I love the way it supports art and music and drama and in a cynical and lonely world insists on celebrating and pot luck suppers. I love the way it shelters the victim, prods the arrogant, invites the greedy, embraces the isolated, touches the outcast, and tells jokes to the self important. I love the way it points beyond itself toward something we may not be able to see but that something opens the mind and the universe to relationships more powerful than death. I can’t stand its marginalization because of narcissism and traveling soccer.
I think the world should take lessons from my wife. I do. She knows how to be good. It’s called loving. She wants to make sure we don’t overcrowd the house. People won’t have the opportunity to really get to know each other. Maybe there should be two parties. She understands.
The Hispanic church is making tostadas. Here goes nothin’. Or maybe here goes something.
So, thirty odd years later, I’m looking back on a career. Pretty wild, huh? I’ve worked all this time in a handful of churches, using a theological perspective that my ancestors helped build. Nothing like coming full circle.
The night before last we had a Presbytery meeting. All the ministers from about fifty churches and lay representatives to balance them meet periodically to do the business of this governing body. Conflict simmered beneath a crust of parliamentary function. It was more fun than chicken pox, but not much. Differences in perspectives and attitudes coupled with a power vacuum have yielded a lack of trust and loss of common vision. It’s a microcosm of our culture. The gorilla in the room refused us to let us get much done unless we operated at a level so shallow as to make the meeting nearly meaningless. At one especially difficult juncture, after a hasty conference with my wife, I got up and commented on the presence of the gorilla, and in an effort to deal with our commonality invited the whole presbytery to our house for a party in October. They laughed. But I waded in and finally convinced them Chris and I meant business. Hospitality created the church. Maybe Hospitality can help it now.
I love the church. I love its scholarship and insistence on self criticism. I love its inclusiveness that demands an openness uncomfortable in a polarized society. I love its unflinching approach to suffering and its willingness to stand in the face of injustice. I love the way it supports art and music and drama and in a cynical and lonely world insists on celebrating and pot luck suppers. I love the way it shelters the victim, prods the arrogant, invites the greedy, embraces the isolated, touches the outcast, and tells jokes to the self important. I love the way it points beyond itself toward something we may not be able to see but that something opens the mind and the universe to relationships more powerful than death. I can’t stand its marginalization because of narcissism and traveling soccer.
I think the world should take lessons from my wife. I do. She knows how to be good. It’s called loving. She wants to make sure we don’t overcrowd the house. People won’t have the opportunity to really get to know each other. Maybe there should be two parties. She understands.
The Hispanic church is making tostadas. Here goes nothin’. Or maybe here goes something.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Presbytery
My family has been Presbyterian just after it became impractical to be Druids. So you could say it's been in the family a while. When I decided to do the ministry thing, I went to a seminary with twelve, yup, twelve different schools included in the amalgum. I took classes at them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Baptist, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, etc. Learned a lot about a lot. And in the process I migrated to this interesting place called home. Boiling it all down Presbyterianism made the most sense to me. It had just as many warts as most of them, but there was a grace in it, a freedom with a down to earth sense of realism and honesty that drew me.
Fast forward thirty odd years and I still feel that way. It's not the easiest way to go. It bonds us with people that alternately infuriate and frustrate what I sense is best. But that very bonding is perhaps the best part. All the abrasion and struggle demands tolerance and patience and putting the Law of Love into action.
Last night we had a regular meeting of the Presbytery. This is a gathering of all the ministers from about 50 churches and an equal number of elder delegates. We do the business of this governing body. These meetings will fry your brain if you let them. Kick in the tolerance and patience and add stamina. But we worship and we laugh and we get to see people that we've been too busy to see since last meeting.
There was conflict simmering just beneath the business. Factions doing their thing. Financial issues coupled with dissatisfaction with staff. Sound familiar? So I got up and invited everybody to a party at our house in October(Chris and I planned it in about 30 seconds during debate over an amendment to the original motion). They all laughed and I had to give a speech about the church needing more hospitality and less business. We'll see what happens. My wife is a saint. They should all take lessons from her. I do.
I love the church. I love how it has lifted up scholarship and learning and wisdom and caring and the arts and music and fellowship in a cynical and lonely world. I love the way it points beyond itself to something we can't even see, but we affirm as being as or more real than anything the culture sells. I love the way it won't settle for easy answers. I love the way it transcends boundaries and pulls at polarities and pokes at self importance and arrogance. I love the way it couragously embraces suffering and humbly confronts evil. I hate seeing it die because people are too busy and too narcissistic(however you spell that). But if we've got to die we'll go out the way we've always been. Obstinate and unwilling to settle for anything less than the kingdom of God.
What do you think? Should we play twister at the party?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Buying a House and Dying
We bought a house! That may seem a prosaic observation. Not real philosophic, but this is like my first girl friend. No it's not, it's better. My first girl friend was more a product of my own imagination than real flesh and blood. This place has a front yard and a kitchen and a mortgage.
The process is amazing, offers and counter offers flying through agents. They should be called seconds. They carry our blades and make sure we get to the dueling field on time. (See? I'm out there in my imagination already.) Getting married is easy compared to all the hoops of buy a house.
In some ways that's appropriate. Claiming one another needs no signature, it needs a commitment of spirit. Claiming a property as your own requires a putting down of foundations and roots that have a profound effect on a whole community of people. Maybe we should sign more papers to get married. We'd probably take it more seriously. Who would do the inspections? Anyway, the process of choosing, bidding, signing reorients world order and perspective. That specific part of the map begins to grow in importance.
Here's where death comes in.
In the movie Signs, the main character's wife is pinned agains a tree by a truck. She's basically cut in half, killed, but kept alive by the pressure of the truck, momentarily. Her husband comes to see her and hold her hand as she dies. The movie made me think about the process of dying. Do we desperately try to hold on to the life we've known, the life of wonder and glory that has meant so much to us? Or do we turn in expectation to the unknown that is a whisper away?
One could say it's only fear that keeps us from turning to the new and leaving this, all of this behind. But I think that's cheap. The bonds of affection and appreciation run deep. And we not only grieve for the loss of our own life here, we grieve for the others who are not going with us on the great adventure of life beyond life. No wonder there are tears. They are a mixture of joy and pain, of anxiety and anticipation.
So now here I am, feet on two sides of moments of my life. It will be a while before we leave, years. But the tide is changing. No one else can see it. It runs within me, a tide of the heart. But it is coming.
The process is amazing, offers and counter offers flying through agents. They should be called seconds. They carry our blades and make sure we get to the dueling field on time. (See? I'm out there in my imagination already.) Getting married is easy compared to all the hoops of buy a house.
In some ways that's appropriate. Claiming one another needs no signature, it needs a commitment of spirit. Claiming a property as your own requires a putting down of foundations and roots that have a profound effect on a whole community of people. Maybe we should sign more papers to get married. We'd probably take it more seriously. Who would do the inspections? Anyway, the process of choosing, bidding, signing reorients world order and perspective. That specific part of the map begins to grow in importance.
Here's where death comes in.
In the movie Signs, the main character's wife is pinned agains a tree by a truck. She's basically cut in half, killed, but kept alive by the pressure of the truck, momentarily. Her husband comes to see her and hold her hand as she dies. The movie made me think about the process of dying. Do we desperately try to hold on to the life we've known, the life of wonder and glory that has meant so much to us? Or do we turn in expectation to the unknown that is a whisper away?
One could say it's only fear that keeps us from turning to the new and leaving this, all of this behind. But I think that's cheap. The bonds of affection and appreciation run deep. And we not only grieve for the loss of our own life here, we grieve for the others who are not going with us on the great adventure of life beyond life. No wonder there are tears. They are a mixture of joy and pain, of anxiety and anticipation.
So now here I am, feet on two sides of moments of my life. It will be a while before we leave, years. But the tide is changing. No one else can see it. It runs within me, a tide of the heart. But it is coming.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
ICONS
I was talking with a class the other day about what moved an individual from important or powerful or famous into the place of an icon. We nosed around it for a while, looking at people that had iconic place in our culture. FDR, Kennedy, Regan, Martin Luther King, Mohamed Ali, Janis Joplin, Sinatra, people that stood out. It had nothing to do with our approval or sense of resonance with their thoughts and attitudes. It had to do with how they siezed their moment in history, how they lived in such a way as to help define that moment.
It made me consider individuals that have done that for me. How my history has been defined, for better or worse by individuals I have known. Some of it has to do with them and some of it has to do with me. It would be nice if such dominant personalities in my life had been all positive, lovely people. But such is not the case for any of us. Our struggles are just as formative as our blessed days. A considerable amount of my life has been spent in defending myself from the incursions of people who weren't very nice to me. It took me a long time to find a style of balance that kept me away from fear of losing myself.
I said to the class that one of the best definitions of a healthy person is one who doesn't feel the need to defend or justify themselves, but is willing to accept people for who and what they are and allow them the space to be that way. It's not easy to be graceful, partly because we do react in fear and we do spend a lot of our lives defining ourselves according to ego boundaries that are rarely more sophisticated than our two year old protestations of "No" and "Mine." Our vocabulary is larger and we have all kinds of justifications but it's hard to grow into a secure person. Another reason it's hard to be graceful is that sometimes it's painful. We get punished for not seeking to win or convert or have our own way.
Anyway, I think if I want to put a few icons on my psychic refrigerator, it might do me good to consider what I've learned from them. How have they facilitated my growth toward demonstrating grace and peace in my life? How do they, in their own way teach me about living? Abraham Lincoln does that for me. As does Michaelangelo. So does my wife. There are a few others that shall not be named. I tend to get hives when I consider them. Boy, are they instructive.
It made me consider individuals that have done that for me. How my history has been defined, for better or worse by individuals I have known. Some of it has to do with them and some of it has to do with me. It would be nice if such dominant personalities in my life had been all positive, lovely people. But such is not the case for any of us. Our struggles are just as formative as our blessed days. A considerable amount of my life has been spent in defending myself from the incursions of people who weren't very nice to me. It took me a long time to find a style of balance that kept me away from fear of losing myself.
I said to the class that one of the best definitions of a healthy person is one who doesn't feel the need to defend or justify themselves, but is willing to accept people for who and what they are and allow them the space to be that way. It's not easy to be graceful, partly because we do react in fear and we do spend a lot of our lives defining ourselves according to ego boundaries that are rarely more sophisticated than our two year old protestations of "No" and "Mine." Our vocabulary is larger and we have all kinds of justifications but it's hard to grow into a secure person. Another reason it's hard to be graceful is that sometimes it's painful. We get punished for not seeking to win or convert or have our own way.
Anyway, I think if I want to put a few icons on my psychic refrigerator, it might do me good to consider what I've learned from them. How have they facilitated my growth toward demonstrating grace and peace in my life? How do they, in their own way teach me about living? Abraham Lincoln does that for me. As does Michaelangelo. So does my wife. There are a few others that shall not be named. I tend to get hives when I consider them. Boy, are they instructive.
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