so i only have two weeks off school and i work those two weeks. no vacation this year at all. so...i'm taking these two school-free weeks to abandon the computer (except for my search for a permanent job - my current position ends when school starts). i will return to blogging on september 5th.
Some thoughts I had this week amid an all-nighter:
Can I be a grade addicted, over-driven student and meet God? Can all nighters be a place of holiness?
I am sitting at my kitchen table. It is pitch black, three hours until sunrise. I will meet the sun before I meet my bed this night. The lights are turned off and I am surrounded by candles as I listen to music of the kingdom and sit with a text on mysticism, the life of a prophet and social justice. I have Seattle’s favorite sacrament, coffee, as my companion and exhortation in a hand-made mug as I slowly study for a paper. Is this not a sacrament? Is this not sacred. One minute I am entrenched in thoughts of what grade I might get, but the next I am brought to tears as I listen for God’s plan for my small life and petty soul.
And I know, Jesus sits with me this night at this table. I will not rest until Friday night, when all the work is done. Then too, Jesus will Sabbath with me. We will sleep in together. We will wander Greenlake together. Could I ask more of a sacred life?
A friend needs me today. What, then, have I done with my day? Is it really possible that I am a pastor, a shepherd in love with her sheep? I have sanctified my day on her behalf. I am praying with every breath: inhaling shalom and exhaling love. I am listening to the Breastplate of Saint Patrick on repeat, seeking to internalize the prayer that Christ be everything to her this day. I am praying that her friends and family be roused to prayer and that our prayers be mingled as one beautiful choir, inspired by the beauty God has painted in her face and brought to tears through God’s tears for her.
Is this shepherding? Is this being blessed to be a blessing? Is this the beautiful calling God gives us? Is it my pleasure and my responsibility to sanctify my day, my thoughts, my every breath for the benefit of those I love?
Praise the God who calls us to a life of prayer, sanctity, community, grief, and with-ness. Praise the God who breaks my heart on behalf of another.
where do you hide a scary alien?
what would a chaste bride do on her wedding night if she didn't realize it was her wedding night?
what does out culture do with desire?
in an attempt to hide the extra-terrestial her brother coaxed into her room, young drew barrymoore covered the odd looking stranger with odd looking stuffed animals. maybe if he is hidden in excess, he will not be seen.
isn't this what we do with desire in our consumeristic culture? there is one true desire: God. for whatever fallen reason, we flee and fear this desire. we hide it behind a plethora of substitute desire and lust thinking, maybe we'll stop seeing it. we step back and look at our collage of desire and squit our eyes? is it still there? of course it is. and so our collection of lusts grows exponentially, always seeking new highs. we are addicted. finally, we have it so hidden that it is like that 90's fad - magic eye. if we work really hard and stare long enough, and if we really want to see it, then we can find our desire amist the camoflaging army of cheaper, satiable desires - but only if we want. then, finally, it's lost completely, and if ever we could stop and find an approximation of rest in our frenzy to satiate the myriad of sirens enticing us to fulfill our million desires - if we could rest, then we would rest easy, knowing that we have made our desire utterly lost.
what would happen if a chaste bride waited for the wedding night then, with uncontainable passion and anticipation, somehow forgot that the wedding had happened - somehow forgot that tonight was the wedding night?
maybe she would run around in an increasingly tattered and dirtied wedding dress finding lovers, like a whore rather than a bride.
is this not also what we do with our desire? our desire is for consumation, only we don't know that it is here. we may intellectually say "the kingdom has come," but, we have no real knowledge that the kingdom has come - that the wedding night is here. so, longing for comsumation, we simply consume.
Lord, that we could know that the kingdom has come! That we would see you as our husband.
So what is ministry? What is it to awaken life in those around us?
the desire for God is a living thing, something that will not settle to be hidden amidst dusty, lifeless stuffed animals. God is a jealous and loving husband who will not sit by as his hungry wife seeks to placate her desire with lesser lovers. the desire for God will be seen. as ministers, we speak the words and live the lives and pray the prayers that invite desire to step out of cultural camoflauge. we live our lives hoping to realize, ourselves, that the wedding night has come and our true love longs for us and, as we realize that ourselves, we invite others into the consumation of the kingdom.
maybe ministry can be seen as living in our own desire and calling forth and highlighting desire in those we serve?
what would this mean to a vein of faith that has systematically repressed desire?
what would it be to not hide, but embrace that desire that we still desperately fear?
