death penalty

a friend of one of my sinners and saints bros has started a discussion of the death penalty.


check it out and comment.

http://evolvingconsciousness.blogspot.com/

saturday sabbath

one of my courses was cancelled...for uber lame reasons, but, none-the-less, i have a free day.

debbie and i are spending the day at pike place.

here is my quote of the day -- i couldn't believe i said it as i watched it drip off my tongue and stand in the air like the words on sesame street:

"i do have one errand that i have to do. I HAVE TO GO TO LEFT BANK BOOKS AND GET A BUMPER STICKER."

getting a bumper sticker is on my "have-to" list.


only me.

commute

speeding the seemingly endless stretch of i-5 between home and work, singing along with poor old lu to keep my tired eyes open and drifting mind conscious, i finally round the last corner before my exit ramp. as i do, the towering evergreens seem to slide left and right to make way for the perfect view that briefly distracts truly attentive drivers. once the trees fell into their place, mt. rainier slinks into place and stands at attention. my breath escapes.

minutes later, my lungs end their sabbath as my mind reminds me it is time to signal, exit, and complete the trek to work.

how blessed are seattlites that this picture is the morning commute?

sure, traffic sucks, but it is a built in tour of God's art museum - who else has the gift of mandatory art time after work?

our youth vbs

"all one face"

after mexico and othello, american kids drive me nuts. they are so spoiled, so distant, so demanding.

then, sunday morning, as i emerged from my tent to a line of kids waiting to 1) chastise me for sleeping in so late and 2) hug me, i began to wonder if the kids are really all that much different?

bryan insightfully reflected on the faces of children (www.bnixon.blogspot.com). in the last scene of "imposters" with stanley tucci, a confused communist with a bomb detinator in hand preaches about his ideal world where all people are the same. he looks across the faces of the people present and, in their pain, humiliation, love, hope, desparation, he sees that across class and nationality, we are all the same. he chants, "all one face, all one face, all one face!" then he throws the detinator away.

are our faces that different when all is said?

and, if we are in Christ, shouldn't we all be a portion of the great mosaic that is the one incarnational face of Jesus?

the love of a child as key to community

Ocean, since my life has nose-dived (dove?) into insanity, misses me and so he will grab a book and sit on their patio, where i often sit (sat) while reading for school. Once he gets situated with his book, he'll announce, "Becky be here soon." When Jen says, "No Ocean, I don't think Becky's coming today," Oceans stares crossly at her and says, "Yep. Becky be here soon." Then he looks down at his book and patiently waits as my absesnse continues.

When Jaguar sees me - those days when I do find time to visit - she shakes and her mouth stretches out into that pure golden sunshine smile as she anticipates my rushing over to pick her up, play with her, and remind her that she is my precious sunshine.

My response:
1) holy shit. this is too much responsibility. i have become these kids' family. my absense, my busyness affects them. ocean feels abandoned and angry when i don't come around often enough. the lack of responsibility to pure little people who love without reserve was one of the few benefits of being single and childless. crap. what's going to happen if/when i move to ireland? will they feel abandoned? will they suffer loss? can i move despite this?

2) holy crap, i have never felt so loved as when ocean wakes up groggy from a nap but smiles to see that i'm there, when i hear that he asks constantly where i'm at, when jaguar's sunshine stretches across her face simply because i walked into a room. kids are amazing.

3) holy God, you are beyond compare that you have created these little people. thank you for the extravagent grace to be placed in the middle of their lives - let me walk well within their world. let me be like them, giving love as the sun gives light.

4) why do they love me so? sure, i've given them so much i hope i give my own children less so that they won't get spoiled. but they don't understand that most of their clothing are gifts i saw and couldn't keep from buying for them. sure i pray for them more than for myself, but they don't know that. all they know is my presence.

then i realize, if we are to learn about community, children are the best teachers. maybe biting, stealing toys, hitting when you don't get what you want etc. are not good community traits, but loving someone - not for what you get from them, how charismatic they are, the sense of satisfaction their presence gives you etc. - loving someone for their presence in your life and craving that presence when it is absent - this root would grow a community too beautiful to put in words or contain in a picture. it's beyond my comprehension.

then i wonder, what were the children thinking as they approached Jesus.
- dude, he's really important, i want to talk to him so i can drop his name on the play ground
- my ankle's been hurting, maybe he can heal me
- i hit my sister alot, maybe if i'm nice to him he'll forgive me
- maybe that dude has some better food than my mom gave me
- he's teaching some cool stuff, maybe we can hit up a pub, get some root beer and talk philosophy
- that dude said he's "THE way, THE truth, THE life." if i don't want to go to hell, i'd better get on his good side
- hey, maybe if i hang with this dude, i can be a star player in a social group based on his teachings
- if he's God, maybe he has a super power for me!

probably not.

how, then, did the children come to Jesus? was he simply so loving and the children so absorbed in the pursuit of simple love that as love beemed through his gently eyes and kind smile, they had no choice but to run into his arms and recieve his love?

is this, then, what community does, as the collective body of christ? each of us, from childhood, seek the loving relationship God created us for - love between God, others, and God's world. when we come together as community, are we dually the child running to the arms of an incarnational representative of Christ as well as, ourselves, being an incarnation of Christ, giving love as determinedly and freely as Jesus did to those children?

when ocean sits on that patio and occasionally is awarded with my approach, when i kneel down, hug him, pick him up, tell him i love him soooooo much and tickle him until his angelic laugh climaxes and his smile grows so big i wonder if it hurts his face, am i bringing to him a piece of Jesus? without a second thought, i know that, in that moment, he has brought Jesus to me.

el cape - you know what this town needs? some non-conversational white people with jesus tracts!

what the f

today will mark nine straight days of working 12 hours at church (or mission trip) and at least 5 on school work. i'm leaving for a church camp out and won't get a day off church until monday.

in an email from a church member, i revieced this image and realized just how much i need a vacation.

Mexico 2 - life in a moment

first, you should maybe know that my mexico post comes from two nights of not sleeping because i thought i had a black widow bite and might die --- it wasn't a black widow (though one did make a web and take up residence on my computer charger), but it was some sort of spider that i'm alergic to and that made my leg swell more than it ever has before (if you don't know, i have a height complex, wear tall shoes, and sprain my ankle all the time -- it is no stranger to swelling :-).

anyway, when i stop deconstructing the mission and review moments, there was beauty in the mission trip - pushing children in swings as they giggled with simple joy, being drug all around a play ground as one girl calledd me "gringa" and would not let go of my hand for even one minute - seeing the joy in her face as i sat next to her after she finally did let go, welcoming youth into a conservative church and letting them brake dance during sunday school, the breath-taking joy as kristi, one of my youth - in the above picture - embraced a girl she's longed to see all year, talking with one black colorado youth who is the only minority in his youth group of 90 and is not even allowed to call himself "black," and listening to his story and struggle, meeting a college student/artist from mill creek who wants me to connect her to art community and wants to get involved in "work of art." these are good moments.

discipline opens the door to putting aside over analysis and allowing these moments to be what they are and to have awe and appreciation for their beauty.

Mexico

i think i have some sort of problem, but i was perplexed the entire time in mexico. i didn't know this ahead of time, but the orphanage is AG and they have started a bunch of churches that are teaching that people with tattoos aren't christian. why on earth would you take teaching time to cover this? i don't know. but, there i was, tattoo'd and furthering a mission that says that i am not a christian. good times. we also did door to door paper evangelism. the people are starving, living in unsafe condition etc. and we bring papers that share the good news of a Jesus who, aparently, as represented by us, can't help them except to walk around, speaking a different language and passing out paper - - more trash to fill the dirt roads.

anyway, the pictures are cool.

mclaren thought #5

In response to the 30 years war over religion and fear of it coming to France, Descartes creates a knowledge in a public sphere that is free of religion so that members of different religions can step out and dialogue on a neutral certainty.

“[Descartes’ method created] certainty without moral wisdom, certainty without compassion. This kind of certainty is dangerous.”

“Excessive confidence is like a cancer. We need to treat it with chemotherapy and there are two chemotherapies to absolutism: pluralism and relativism.”

“If any place had created a secular public sphere, it was Germany.”

In response, philosophers seek to diminish this certainty.

“You introduce pluralism and relativism and absolutism retreats – but religious faith plummets.”

“Today we have people who think [reason] is the answer.
There are people who think pluralism and relativism are the answer.
There are still those who think religion is the answer.”

“The story is not an absolutist metanarrative or a private personal true-for-me relativist narrative.”

“What the biblical narrative is an all-embracing mega narrative. This type of narrative always has room for and cares for the other. It does not want to destroy others but always has room for them.”

“I believe that we can and must as Christians within a postmodern world give an account of human knowing that will apply to music, mathematics, to biology and to history, to theology and to chemistry. We need to articulate for the [post-modern] world what we call an epistemology of love.”
NT Wright

“If the gospel of Jesus cannot solve this problem, (jaw dropped and head shaking in befuddlement) then I don’t know who can do it.”

mclaren thought #4.1 on homosexuality

this is how homosexuality has been traditionally viewed.


i think most of us can understand that this is inappropriate. Read on.

mclaren thought #4.2 on homosexuality

This is a schema that McLaren drew for us today - revealing some of the complexity of the homosexuality issue. He suggests that there are many causes and degrees of homosexuality and that for many - maybe most, we should interact with dysfunction and move them into committed heterosexual relationships. Some, with a low sex drive could be led to celibacy.

However, for those who are very homosexual and have high sexual drive, what it best?
More dysfuction through promiscuity?

The question is posed, if it is possible that not so much was known about homosexuality at the time, for Paul to have made an exception for committed relationships, it would be the same sort of non-sensical statement as if Jesus had encountered a "demon" possessed person and said, "Well maybe it's OCD or Bi-Polar."

So today, with our knowledge, we might be able to look at this section of homosexuals and love them the same way we love people with OCD - which is a soley biological disorder. For OCD patients, we give them what is available - pharmisuticacls and counseling. For a sexually charged homosexual, could - and I'm not saying it's right - nor am I denying the complexity of it - could it be possible that love would be taking this group of people and giving them committed realtionships filtering out some of the sin that promiscuity and sexual dysfunction bring?

Please discuss this.

McLaren thought #3

A summary of a thought in class:
Military super powers build their armies at the cost of their economy. When the military becomes too much of a financial burden for the economy to afford, then the country goes into economic spiral and the military must also decrease. Thereby, the super power is no longer a super power.


In Iraq, they are saying that we need to "stand down" and they need to "stand up."

McLaren hypothesizes that this is because the economic burden is becoming too much and the country could begin to spiral and concludes, "in this way, 'he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.' maybe this is how these things happen."

mclaren thought #2

a parable from class today:
there is a man along a stream who sees someone drowning. he saves the person and puts him on aid car. then another person is drowing - who is saved and put on the aid car again. then there is a third and a fourth and so on. saving them is mercy. at some point, though, you have to ask, "who is throwing these people in the stream?" and you need to go seek justice up stream.

a collection of quotes:
“If all you do is mercy, you can have the unintended consequence of empowering injustice”
“When we enter the public sphere, we can enter in either mercy or justice or both. It may be that some branches of the church are better at mercy and others justice, but we have to stop seeing each other as enemies.”
“If you try to do either [justice or mercy] without walking humbly with God you will be worn out”

mclaren thought #1

“In Western society there is the assumption that smart white men define reality. Western civilization and the Gospel so linked that when Western civilization goes down, the Gospel goes down. So, out of fidelity to the Gospel [a conservative Christian author] defends Western culture and denigrates other cultures.”
McLaren

My thought:

In Chariots of fire – there is a scene where the British are trying to talk Eric into running on Sunday, they say, in my day it was “country first, God second.”

We need to not let our country and our Western view do this to us – demand our allegiance to anything on a level above or equal to our allegiance to God.

A parable – a baseball player might think that wearing the same pair of underwear every day –without washing them- makes the team win. So, out of devotion to the team, he wears the same underwear everyday. He smells. He gets sick. He’s uncomfortable and cannot play well because of it. But when you try to take the underwear away, he’ll fight you for the seeming sake of his team.

We cannot allow this to be the church. We, as people who see this and people who love the church (as in God’s people – not as in the institutional organization – have the responsibility to expose that they are aligned to something unworthy of their alignment.

blessed

okay, maybe i did have time for one more thought.

i am sitting lazily at ladros doing the same exact thing i've done for the past 8 years of my life - reading over some cold coffee i've taken too long to drink.

a year and a couple months ago, i was doing the same thing - but in boston - in starbucks - pounding my pencil deeper and deeper into the page betraying pacifism to the fantacy that maybe my page could be the author's jugular and i could end the closed minded, old-day pining, blind to post-modern beauty spewings of a staunch reformed tradition.

six months ago - no, less - i was sitting in seattle at a ladro's steaming over how petty if not idiotic my professors taped words were. i saw gcts graduates as being aptly prepared for ministry 50 years ago. my thought was "gcts graduates are like milk put on the shelf past its expiration date. it is not sweet to taste. it is not nurishing. it is not useful."

now, i am tired and forgetting to count my blessings as i gently read one of the first theology text books that has not upset me. i am highlighting and pondering rather tha fuming and pounding. pacifism is not a test.

no matter how busy, over-worked, perplexed about the church, hurt by reluctant pilgrims etc. i am, i know i am blessed. my life has taken many pleasant meanders and directional shifts. i feel home. i feel loved. i feel shined upon. i feel useful. i feel blessed.

sabbath

for the next week and a half, i don't have time to think (or atleast think out) my own thoughts, so i'll be posting quotes.

these are quotes from the sabbath course i took at the end of last month:

When asked if he was encouraging a life of powerlessness, my profesor said, “Me, no. I’m not.


But, Jesus does.”

He continued to reflect on the baptism of Christ and said this, “Jesus’ power didn’t come from being the messiah, his power came from a voice saying, ‘You are loved.’”


“The main problem in life is men.”

“My new book is the purpose driven prayer of jabez for those left behind.”

“Sabbath is not what you do. Sabbath is what you don’t do.”

”We live in a society where people are apoplectic about gay marriage but don’t raise any uproar about the fact that we are not a culture of Sabbath. That’s one of the commandments.”

“Why do you have a Messiah complex when Jesus doesn’t even have a Messiah complex.”

“As soon as we are certain about our image of God, God must mercifully shatter it.”
-Lewis

We need to keep our thumbs off the scale of reciprocity

“A pervasive form of contemporary violence and that is activism and over-work.”
-Merton

The Chinese word for busy – a combination of “heart” and “to kill” – to kill the heart



note that the catalyst for posting quotes is my busy, sabbath-free life and that i am painfully aware of the inherent irony and conviction.

hallack

with all sarcasm, my pastor said today, "Every day is a party with Jesus." he also refered to a loud hawaiian shirt he was wearing as his "party shirt" and said "yo" when i knocked on the door. i heart my pastor.

a few things drawing my mind back to home church

1) i'm pretty sure i'm going to boston at the beginning of september! woohoo!! - note that this woohoo would be completely negated if i planned on venturing to the spiritual war zone that is gordon-conwell - but i have no such intention. i just miss the restful feeling of the fellowship in my spiritual home in beverly.

2) i'll get to see sinners and saints and andrea - the remnant of people i'd be stoked to see

3) jeff's given me the title "liturgical poet." i don't know what to do with that. what does that mean? what responsibilities come with that? what would that have meant at home church? what on earth can that mean at my church?


i want to stop working and just write. alas, that's not possible for at least three years - so i'll try to pretend the idea didn't occur to me.

Insanity's Hope

i'm going to start posting occasional entries from the books i'm writing (or at least that i was writing before getting a full-time ministry position). this is the preface (or atleast the beginning of the preface) for a book entitled, "of the world and not in it: the historical separatistic syncretism of the church."


Trekking hotly across a dry desert, the drops of sea water on weary feet must have birthed a slight sigh of relief as he stood on the edge of death. Just as the pounding waves, however, his thought eroded the momentary rest. An army pressed in on him with nothing but water for escape. Surely, throwing the children into the bulging sea would be more humane than waiting for destruction at the hand of an enraged slave master. Truth whispered what seemed insanity. The haggard prince turned slave turned shepherd turned leader in a fit of either frustration or obedience – only he knows – thrust a shepherd’s scepter into the air and bellowed. Truth swirled and whispered again – to the sea. One could almost depict hands reaching from the sky down to the sea and gently pulling it back like a majestic curtain. The soggy ground dried as though watching water spill in reverse and the people swarmed the newly-made passage way. Running from one side to the other, the people knew no difference had been made. Their wearied feet could never out speed the pounding of the horses’ feet behind them. Death would meet them on the other side of the path. Some even prayed for the sea to swallow them with peaceful drowning.

Safely on the other shore, fears became fact. The army followed them and death was one step closer. Again, Truth whispered insanity – which surely seemed more and more sane with every moment. The shepherd again hoisted his staff and bellowed. The sea responded, closing in and devouring the slave masters and their steeds. Truth somehow, broke through desperation with insanity and won.

Some of you know this story and wonder what my point might be. In the pages to follow, you will encounter utter desperation. You should despair – Truth is nearly lost. However, hope is not. Truth’s habit is to whisper insanity in the final moment of fear and frustration only to lead to regal victory. Through all of the fact mixed with opinion, sarcasm, cynicism, and deep fear that I will share over the next many pages, never lose hope. We have read the end of the book and know that no army of modernity, post-modernity, syncretism, sin, slave-master or of any kind will overcome. Truth will win. In truth, Truth is poised for a victorious march and is only biding time before, once again, insanity is uttered and triumph birthed.

Many of my peers say we cannot know Truth. I agree. Still, to doubt our ability to know something is one issue. Questioning the ability of Truth to meet us speaks more cynically of Truth than it does of us. Truth can, is determined to, and will be know. That said, my hope remains to depress and shock you leaving only insanity’s hope.

beginning and end

today i had endcap-like encouonters.

holding jaguar as she discovered nature - seeing the absoulte wonder in her glistening ocean-blue eyes as she touched and held the branches of a pine tree, leaves, a flower - she took such joy in such simplicity. softly i whispered in her ear, "Jesus made these because He loves you - his precious princess - sunshine." together we giggled and basked in the sun, absorbing every miniscule blessing - down to the blades of grass.

dashing into church hoping to avoid an elder, i was caught in an undesired encounter. he judged me for sloppy hand writing, too few youth going to mexico, my intern's mathmatical mistake on an employment form, poor communication in our church. in two minutes i went from euphoric to pissed - and behind being pissed, deep wound and increasingly deep rooted fear of what might come at my church. the voice calling me to flawlessness and perfection and shaming me for every misstep grew louder and louder until i had the ramones on full blast singing "i wanna be sedated" to drown out (sedate) the pain i was feeling.

what possesses a person to inflict wound over such petty things?

bryan recently blogged a desire to "journey well" with his niece.

how does a person go from jaguar to my church elder? collective shame? collective de-facing wound? soul age? a journey that is in no way "well" traveled?

with all my heart i love jaguar and prayerfully plead that everyone she encounters cares for and journeys "well" with her.


i wonder if between the two endcaps - jaguar and the elder - stands me - increasingly wounded by the church and still grasping with weakening fingers for even a weak hold on faith, hope, and love. in my journey, will i find footing to become more child-like or will consistant shame and pain lead me to the same end as my church elder?



also...a break through in my understanding of encounter:

maria and i had dinner tonight and discussed what exists between "i and thou." she explained an intense need ot allow that as well as the other to exists as it is - this need is so great that she doesn't allow her "i" to exist. it dawned on me that in doing so, she takes such control over the interaction so as to remove the one thing she rightly should control, herself. when we interact this way, we are violent and rob encounter of what we uniquely bring. as i shared these words and we sat in silence, we both knew our own presences in this encounter and were acutely aware that the encounter had a presence of its own.

luke

he has an amazing heart
he loves God
he would rather help people than do anything else


he's been abandoned by his biological mom
he's been disowned by his adopted mom

all i have to offer him is love mixed with tears and a broken heart

they said he's lazy and he shouldn't have come on the trip
they told him to leave his skateboard at home
he bought one so he could give it to one of the kids

"right"

rarely do i feel like i'm going something "right."

almost never while working in the church do i feel like anything is "right."

today we had church outside. i read a poetic book about creation - the event - to the children then they used all sorts of art supplies, puppets, flowers etc. to create a parade. during the last hymn of church, they marched around rcelebrating God's love of creation. the down point - they had posters that read "God so loved the world" "so" should really be "in such a manner." usually, i'd get caught up in the theological incorrectness of this, but i didn't. i couldn't. i knew this morning was right. i felt at home and knew the kingdom is present.

definately a sacred moment.

good old days

the paradox
concerts every weekend
a pizza mart
one crappy band and a candy break
tomato basil most nights
three sisters who aren't really mine
ryan, sammy, adrian - too much fun
my college experience