I've done some more thinking about God this trip. I was experiencing gratitude for the journey I have thus far experienced in my life of faith - or in my life illuminated by faith. Having received it from my forebears, I have come to own my faith, even as I realize more and more each day how much "my" faith redefines and claims me.
Unity and agency have consumed my thoughts about faith this trip on a couple of my walks and rides. Unity has become the foundation of my new faith home, of late. Agency presents my mind with far more misgivings, so that I begin to wonder whether agency is more useful as a way to anthropomorphize God than it is a way to describe God.
Agency (at least agency as we understand it) involves the ability to affect action - not in some way that merely calls the nature of the thing so affected the agency of divinity (a la Clockmaker) - but action that in some sense reflects the consciousness of divinity. Agency is God's action in the world that reflects and results from the consciousness of God. Judaism and Christianity call this God's will.
And because the universe is a closed system, the way we think of God's agency must change or die, because the present concept of divine agency violates the observable laws of the known universe - at least in terms of Newtonian if not necessarily in terms of quantum physics. What is more, any conception of direct divine intervention in human affairs must account for the apparent amoral (or immoral) caprice or indifference that prompted the Greeks to imagine a divine game of dice on Mount Olympus.
One handy fallback position invokes the tawdry "God's ways are not our ways" cliche, a meaningless attempt at theodicy that ignores the imago Dei aspect of the Jewish tradition and incarnation of the Christian conception of God. Philip Clayton calls God's agency the push of the divine Spirit communicating with human beings, who must decide to act or not on these experiences of divine nudging. I begin to wonder if our (religious adherents') inability to comprehend God's agency stems not from the inadequacy of our theodicy, but from a misapprehension of how agency might "work" from a perspective that takes seriously a spectrum of existence from quantum to cosmic.
To put it another way, I propose to consider agency from a perspective of unity of all existence, at all levels of existence. From such a perspective, the human agent ceases to be the primary referent for agency. In fact, such a unifying perspective not only allows for a reconsideration of divine agency, it transforms our comprehension of human agency itself.
Ironically, the best way for me to begin such a project involves reexamining our notions of human agency, as well as our notions of selfhood. My chief assumption about my own agency involves my creation of a reality outside myself that initially takes form within myself - in my mind or in my will. I think; therefore it is. I want to do something and I do that something.
I think of this process most powerfully in any act of creativity, art or handiwork. I conceive and design a bookcase; I build a bookcase. What I conceived in my mind, I brought into the reality I share with others as an object that more or less reflects my original conception. The act of composing a text (poetry, prose, or a play) involves this process of willing some idea into action or reality.
This will-to-action process serves as a basic definition of agency for any agent we could consider. Such a definition links agency to consciousness, which is why an inanimate object could not exercise agency. This definition also leads to the notion at any animate creature could exercise some form of agency - exerting some form of change on it's environment based on conscious or instinctive will.
But I do not have to explore the boundaries of this definition (sea anemones, a virus or plankton) to expose some serious dilemmas attendant to this definition of agency. And the immediate problem this conception of agency faces is the ubiquitous relational nature of all possible forms of agency.
Take for instance the example of an author composing a text. The language, grammatical conventions, style, form, models of inspiration, and potential recipients of the text (including the author) all precede and inform the text before the "author" conceives it. In the case of language, grammar, literary form, and cultural context, these preconditions of the text bind the text in a way that dictates what any author can conceive or create.
Any agency an author might exercise would be culturally and relationally contingent to such an extent that to consider the text solely the creation of an author-agent would require an act of Herculean myopic blindness in perspective. How else could any other reader ever understand or appreciate such a creation? Yet this blindness to relational and cultural contingency results from the ubiquity of the phenomenon itself: we can no longer see what pervades our existence. Here is the chief problem with our notion not only of agency, but of our understanding of the individual self.
Not only human will, but human identity lies in the vast context of relational and cultural contingency. We cannot comprehend ourselves other than relationally. Cultural norms and values define the spectrum of possible manifestations of self and give comprehensibility to any possible manifestation of self. Any personality trait lies within a spectrum of similar manifestations of this trait. We do not understand these traits other than in comparison these other manifestations. Any self is only comprehensible as a self in terms of it's relationship to others.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Thomas Jefferson Questions
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Smith Mountain Lake State Park, Virginia
Enough of that.
I wanted to write about my experience at Monticello before the trip is over. I want to write about several things that struck me about the place and about the man:
1. The ways in which we are trapped by our time and the ways in which we are able to transcend our time. It would also be important to think about the many ways in which my own time hems me in as well as creates new opportunities to launch me into transcendence.
2. The necessity of reading, reflection and tireless observation to feed a hungry mind.
3. The fleeting nature of achievement and what it means to truly succeed. Jefferson listed his top three achievements when designing the epitaph on his grave monument - serving two terms as president of the United States did not make the list. And on a related note - Jefferson listed his occupation in the 1800 census as "farmer" and felt profoundly humbled by his appointment to follow Dr. Franklin as US Ambassador to France.
4. The importance of designing one's surroundings to enhance creativity and inspiration (this is one of the most important veins of thought I'd like to pursue.
5. Jefferson's young wife died in childbirth near Vicki's age when she barely survived giving birth to Eli. If Vicki had died then, what would the widower Bo have to say to me now about my relationship to Vicki in the ensuing years of our life together? How could I keep this favor and my deep gratitude for it always before me?
6. How would I design a house tailored to my needs and aspirations? Where would I build this house?
7. What does it say about Jefferson that he bequeathed to Virginia a institution of higher learning, to the Library of Congress the bulk of his substantial personal library, but to his family a crushing debt that forced them to sell his beloved Monticello and nearly all of their belongings?
8. On a related note, I'd like to think some more about Jefferson's decision to build his house with a minimal stairwell and nearly useless dome room...
Now the fire is settling to embers and we are sleeping our last night in the woods on this trip before packing for home tomorrow morning. I'm standing fire vigil and getting a few last thoughts on disk before retiring with my family. We've had a great trip and coming home will be chaotic by comparison.
Smith Mountain Lake State Park, Virginia
Enough of that.
I wanted to write about my experience at Monticello before the trip is over. I want to write about several things that struck me about the place and about the man:
1. The ways in which we are trapped by our time and the ways in which we are able to transcend our time. It would also be important to think about the many ways in which my own time hems me in as well as creates new opportunities to launch me into transcendence.
2. The necessity of reading, reflection and tireless observation to feed a hungry mind.
3. The fleeting nature of achievement and what it means to truly succeed. Jefferson listed his top three achievements when designing the epitaph on his grave monument - serving two terms as president of the United States did not make the list. And on a related note - Jefferson listed his occupation in the 1800 census as "farmer" and felt profoundly humbled by his appointment to follow Dr. Franklin as US Ambassador to France.
4. The importance of designing one's surroundings to enhance creativity and inspiration (this is one of the most important veins of thought I'd like to pursue.
5. Jefferson's young wife died in childbirth near Vicki's age when she barely survived giving birth to Eli. If Vicki had died then, what would the widower Bo have to say to me now about my relationship to Vicki in the ensuing years of our life together? How could I keep this favor and my deep gratitude for it always before me?
6. How would I design a house tailored to my needs and aspirations? Where would I build this house?
7. What does it say about Jefferson that he bequeathed to Virginia a institution of higher learning, to the Library of Congress the bulk of his substantial personal library, but to his family a crushing debt that forced them to sell his beloved Monticello and nearly all of their belongings?
8. On a related note, I'd like to think some more about Jefferson's decision to build his house with a minimal stairwell and nearly useless dome room...
Now the fire is settling to embers and we are sleeping our last night in the woods on this trip before packing for home tomorrow morning. I'm standing fire vigil and getting a few last thoughts on disk before retiring with my family. We've had a great trip and coming home will be chaotic by comparison.
Misty Mountain Musings
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Misty Mountain Campground, Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia
We have holed up here for a few days (since arriving Wednesday night, late), mostly lazing around in the intense heat and humidity. We did get to Charlottesville on Thursday and took the walking tour of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Ate some ice cream afterwards. The kids spent some time in the pool here and have been glad to have the WiFi access and their iTouches and cell phones. I think we've all read a little bit, except for the boys.
Each of the four mornings we've spent here, I've gotten exactly what I came for - peaceful mornings by a little creek in the woods to read and think in silence, while the cicadas and birds sang to me their love songs. Most nights, Vicki and I have been able to walk together (though it's been a purposeful walk to get points). The kids seem to be getting along well together - especially Eli and Elijah.
We've taken a number of calls from people in our church - about someone threatening suicide, another leaving the church because we aren't the kind of pastors they wanted us to be, the sadnesses attendant to the dissolving of a marriage union, and whether to hold worship in the Grove this morning when it's going to be another scorcher.
For some reason, we have not felt too overwhelmed by this seeming inability to "get away" on our vacation. Thanks to the WiFi, I uploaded Ruthann's sermon notes and Pat's weekly announcements to the church web site on Thursday. Two things come to mind: the community of people we have come to love so much is never far from us, and we are indeed well away here in this place of serenity.
I've finished three books so far on this trip. The first, a collection of sayings of fourth century desert fathers edited by Thomas Merton, has profoundly reminded me of the necessity of humility and patience in my life. Oddly enough, a trip like this gives me the perspective to appreciate the wisdom of these twin foundations of an undivided life.
The second was a follow-up book by Dan Ariely on the nature of human irrationality. He stressed the value of testing our many irrational but cherished assumptions about life and human behavior. He also advocated apologizing, showing our appreciation for others, driving hard through bad experiences without pause, and breaking up good experiences so as not to get used to them and devalue them.
One thing he wrote caught my attention particularly. We often make decisions that repeat earlier decisions we have made, according to his research. We repeat patterns of behavior because we are creatures of habit, but also because we like to affirm things we have already done. When we make rash decisions in the heat of emotion, Ariely has found, we later repeat those rash actions without thinking - or even without the heated emotion that led to the original decision.
This pattern makes a case, Ariely writes, for thinking very carefully when we are angry or sad or carried away emotionally. And for sleeping on a decision we feel the need to make in the sway of these emotions. The decisions we make now set in motion a pattern for the future. We can escape this pattern only by the kind of deep introspection that we typically avoid in our daily life. Patience pays off rich dividends. So say Ariely and the desert fathers.
Another of Ariely's gems involved advice to anyone looking for love. He has little positive to say about dating sites, which cater to the needs of databases, rather than people, and which only confirm our bias for the appearance of beauty. Instead of comparing our statistics, Ariely counsels, we would be far better off engaging in virtual dates, sharing our thoughts and stories and learning about each other - as far as the online dating scene goes.
This counsel seems obvious enough. But it was the canoe metaphor that caught my attention. Ariely wrote that paddling together in a canoe places a couple in a strange and challenging social situation that enables each of them to witness how their potential partner behaves when faced with a challenge - and especially how they treat someone in a relationship when challenged. Very good advice. If they can't find a canoe, any atypical social endeavor would probably do.
The third book, Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," examined relationships from an entirely different point of view. In a vicious story, the love of a woman proves fierce and undying. Meeting such a woman results from grace, not planning. The love the results from such an encounter demands only gratitude and appreciation; it refuses to judge but remains true.
Misty Mountain Campground, Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia
We have holed up here for a few days (since arriving Wednesday night, late), mostly lazing around in the intense heat and humidity. We did get to Charlottesville on Thursday and took the walking tour of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Ate some ice cream afterwards. The kids spent some time in the pool here and have been glad to have the WiFi access and their iTouches and cell phones. I think we've all read a little bit, except for the boys.
Each of the four mornings we've spent here, I've gotten exactly what I came for - peaceful mornings by a little creek in the woods to read and think in silence, while the cicadas and birds sang to me their love songs. Most nights, Vicki and I have been able to walk together (though it's been a purposeful walk to get points). The kids seem to be getting along well together - especially Eli and Elijah.
We've taken a number of calls from people in our church - about someone threatening suicide, another leaving the church because we aren't the kind of pastors they wanted us to be, the sadnesses attendant to the dissolving of a marriage union, and whether to hold worship in the Grove this morning when it's going to be another scorcher.
For some reason, we have not felt too overwhelmed by this seeming inability to "get away" on our vacation. Thanks to the WiFi, I uploaded Ruthann's sermon notes and Pat's weekly announcements to the church web site on Thursday. Two things come to mind: the community of people we have come to love so much is never far from us, and we are indeed well away here in this place of serenity.
I've finished three books so far on this trip. The first, a collection of sayings of fourth century desert fathers edited by Thomas Merton, has profoundly reminded me of the necessity of humility and patience in my life. Oddly enough, a trip like this gives me the perspective to appreciate the wisdom of these twin foundations of an undivided life.
The second was a follow-up book by Dan Ariely on the nature of human irrationality. He stressed the value of testing our many irrational but cherished assumptions about life and human behavior. He also advocated apologizing, showing our appreciation for others, driving hard through bad experiences without pause, and breaking up good experiences so as not to get used to them and devalue them.
One thing he wrote caught my attention particularly. We often make decisions that repeat earlier decisions we have made, according to his research. We repeat patterns of behavior because we are creatures of habit, but also because we like to affirm things we have already done. When we make rash decisions in the heat of emotion, Ariely has found, we later repeat those rash actions without thinking - or even without the heated emotion that led to the original decision.
This pattern makes a case, Ariely writes, for thinking very carefully when we are angry or sad or carried away emotionally. And for sleeping on a decision we feel the need to make in the sway of these emotions. The decisions we make now set in motion a pattern for the future. We can escape this pattern only by the kind of deep introspection that we typically avoid in our daily life. Patience pays off rich dividends. So say Ariely and the desert fathers.
Another of Ariely's gems involved advice to anyone looking for love. He has little positive to say about dating sites, which cater to the needs of databases, rather than people, and which only confirm our bias for the appearance of beauty. Instead of comparing our statistics, Ariely counsels, we would be far better off engaging in virtual dates, sharing our thoughts and stories and learning about each other - as far as the online dating scene goes.
This counsel seems obvious enough. But it was the canoe metaphor that caught my attention. Ariely wrote that paddling together in a canoe places a couple in a strange and challenging social situation that enables each of them to witness how their potential partner behaves when faced with a challenge - and especially how they treat someone in a relationship when challenged. Very good advice. If they can't find a canoe, any atypical social endeavor would probably do.
The third book, Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," examined relationships from an entirely different point of view. In a vicious story, the love of a woman proves fierce and undying. Meeting such a woman results from grace, not planning. The love the results from such an encounter demands only gratitude and appreciation; it refuses to judge but remains true.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Extending Beyond Ourselves in the Body of Christ
There is a beyondness to life I have held in the hands of my soul. A place where the parallel lines come together (though I have not seen this place). Throughout human searching, we have posited this place in a far away realm, though there was one who taught that it encroaches upon us everywhere.
I have not seen this place, but the notion that we swim in it tastes of the kind of irony that calls to me (and that refuses to let me go). To say "beyondness" gives me a way to put my fingers on this relentless, undeniable itch of my consciousness - a maddening truth that eludes me just when I look for it, but that teases me like a cricket in the corner of my bedroom. I live in this place.
The Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The Way. These keys, these talismans create a framework for exploration, for exploring the beyondness. Yet for many they seem to stand for the end of the journey - they circumvent the journey altogether. We - all of us - can only attest to what we know. And some of us must guard the walls while others are driven to move out ahead in the darkness.
The Body of Christ holds together the grace of the incarnation, Immanuel; the sacrificial healing work of the crucifixion; and the miraculous hope of the resurrection, both in the person of Jesus (who becomes the Messiah) and in the lives of all who follow The Way. The last two cannot be teased apart - the resurrected body and the body of his followers and disciples - who have unfortunately come to be called (and who identify themselves as) merely believers.
Life in the Body of Christ goes far beyond belief. We who are members of this body do not accede to some principle or doctrinal concept. We give our lives entirely over to the will of Christ. I write in the general sense of this yielding, because not one of us can live each moment in the path of the Master. Yet his hold on us is fierce and unrelenting, perhaps especially when we attempt to thwart it and go our own way.
I offer this caveat when writing about anything (will, desire, identity) that could be construed as "mine": the Way of following Jesus the Messiah involves coming to know myself from God's perspective, reconstruing the way I understand who I am. This process leads to what Christians call "dying to self" and the miracle of "new life in Christ".
Jesus leads me to a larger comprehension of who I am - a relational understanding of myself as a member of the Body of Christ a body which encompasses all of creation, and not merely the church, or any subset of that creation). The themes of dying and rising again are typically thought of primarily in an ethical sense, but if the definition of "sin" includes this larger sense of life in God, then dying and rising "in Christ" contextualizes all ethical considerations (good and bad behavior) as manifestations of my understanding of "self".
Here is what I mean: if I understand my identity solely from my personal perspective, I also define "the good" from that perspective as well. Self-preservation and gratification become the highest aims and drive all my ethical considerations. In the epistles, this ethical behavior is called the way of "the flesh" and "captivity" to (false or distorted) desire. But if I understand myself as a member of the Body of Christ, the perspective of my desires enlarges beyond the narrow horizon of my "self" and I identify with the "other" (and by this I mean any "other") as part of my self.
Anyone who has experienced love for another person (or perhaps also for another animal, or even a special place) can attest to this enlargement of perspective and desire. As love grows, what begins as a largely selfish desire can expand imperceptibly but powerfully into life with and for another. The Prayer of St. Francis celebrates this love in the phrase "for it is in giving that we receive". When the desire of my partner (or friend, or child, or parent, or lover) conflicts with my own, we seek a mutual reconciliation, or offer each other the gift of subordinating our self-limited desire in order that the one we love might be fulfilled. Sacrifice is certainly one manifestation of this giving attitude, but so also is mutual fulfillment.
The Pauline correspondence includes a statement about a spouse whose desire is for her (or presumably his) partner. When my "self" becomes inextricably related to all "others" in the Body of Christ, my desire expands to consider the needs and concerns of others, in the spirit of a marriage partnership (a union where two are joined as one). As Paul writes, when one experiences joy or sadness, all experience joy or sadness in the Body of Christ.
This unity of identity, perspective and desire in the human community (and perhaps also in all creation - the community of the cosmos) relates us all to what humans have for ages called God. Jesus the Messiah lived in a constant state of awareness of his relatedness to God (a state he consistently called "The Kingdom of God") and invited his followers to experience the "drawing near" of this Way of being in community with others and, through them, with God.
The fourth Gospel includes Jesus' bold claim that he was constantly motivated and moved by the will of God: "The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19 NRSV). This understanding of God's will involves not necessarily (or merely) knowledge we can know; those who inhabit the Kingdom of God experience life animated by God's desire - God's love for all creation and all humanity. Life in Christ cannot be reduced to a system of belief - it reorients my identity entirely in union with God and the whole of creation. And this radical reorientation makes possible a new life in Christ, inspired and empowered by God's love for all.
Dallas Willard, a contemporary Christian theologian, has defined the Kingdom of God as "that place where God's will is perfectly done". The opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 bears witness to the fact that "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and connects the concepts of God's Kingdom and God's will. Later in the same prayer, Jesus reverses the formula, where God's forgiveness of "us" reflects our own forgiveness of "others".
Like the Body of Christ metaphor, the Kingdom of God encompasses all creation in a cosmic perspective that redefines our identity. New actions and behaviors that reflect a deep respect and regard for others flow from this identity "in Christ". Jesus radically defined this new identity for his disciples by inviting each one of us to become a "servant of all". Thomas Merton, in his introduction to The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the fourth Century writes: "Love takes one's neighbor as one's other self...It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word. Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother [or sister]. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self."
Choosing to serve others involves a mastery over the delusion of our selfish desires that frees us to love others. Laying down (aside) our lives for the sake of God's love for the Other leads us to share in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah in our lives. We become the Body of Christ dwelling in the Kingdom of God. Doing for others as we would have done to ourselves results from this expanded notion of Self - this behavior signifies that Jesus has accomplished the transformation of our individual, solitary life into the life of God. We are One, even as Jesus and the Father are One.
I have not seen this place, but the notion that we swim in it tastes of the kind of irony that calls to me (and that refuses to let me go). To say "beyondness" gives me a way to put my fingers on this relentless, undeniable itch of my consciousness - a maddening truth that eludes me just when I look for it, but that teases me like a cricket in the corner of my bedroom. I live in this place.
The Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The Way. These keys, these talismans create a framework for exploration, for exploring the beyondness. Yet for many they seem to stand for the end of the journey - they circumvent the journey altogether. We - all of us - can only attest to what we know. And some of us must guard the walls while others are driven to move out ahead in the darkness.
The Body of Christ holds together the grace of the incarnation, Immanuel; the sacrificial healing work of the crucifixion; and the miraculous hope of the resurrection, both in the person of Jesus (who becomes the Messiah) and in the lives of all who follow The Way. The last two cannot be teased apart - the resurrected body and the body of his followers and disciples - who have unfortunately come to be called (and who identify themselves as) merely believers.
Life in the Body of Christ goes far beyond belief. We who are members of this body do not accede to some principle or doctrinal concept. We give our lives entirely over to the will of Christ. I write in the general sense of this yielding, because not one of us can live each moment in the path of the Master. Yet his hold on us is fierce and unrelenting, perhaps especially when we attempt to thwart it and go our own way.
I offer this caveat when writing about anything (will, desire, identity) that could be construed as "mine": the Way of following Jesus the Messiah involves coming to know myself from God's perspective, reconstruing the way I understand who I am. This process leads to what Christians call "dying to self" and the miracle of "new life in Christ".
Jesus leads me to a larger comprehension of who I am - a relational understanding of myself as a member of the Body of Christ a body which encompasses all of creation, and not merely the church, or any subset of that creation). The themes of dying and rising again are typically thought of primarily in an ethical sense, but if the definition of "sin" includes this larger sense of life in God, then dying and rising "in Christ" contextualizes all ethical considerations (good and bad behavior) as manifestations of my understanding of "self".
Here is what I mean: if I understand my identity solely from my personal perspective, I also define "the good" from that perspective as well. Self-preservation and gratification become the highest aims and drive all my ethical considerations. In the epistles, this ethical behavior is called the way of "the flesh" and "captivity" to (false or distorted) desire. But if I understand myself as a member of the Body of Christ, the perspective of my desires enlarges beyond the narrow horizon of my "self" and I identify with the "other" (and by this I mean any "other") as part of my self.
Anyone who has experienced love for another person (or perhaps also for another animal, or even a special place) can attest to this enlargement of perspective and desire. As love grows, what begins as a largely selfish desire can expand imperceptibly but powerfully into life with and for another. The Prayer of St. Francis celebrates this love in the phrase "for it is in giving that we receive". When the desire of my partner (or friend, or child, or parent, or lover) conflicts with my own, we seek a mutual reconciliation, or offer each other the gift of subordinating our self-limited desire in order that the one we love might be fulfilled. Sacrifice is certainly one manifestation of this giving attitude, but so also is mutual fulfillment.
The Pauline correspondence includes a statement about a spouse whose desire is for her (or presumably his) partner. When my "self" becomes inextricably related to all "others" in the Body of Christ, my desire expands to consider the needs and concerns of others, in the spirit of a marriage partnership (a union where two are joined as one). As Paul writes, when one experiences joy or sadness, all experience joy or sadness in the Body of Christ.
This unity of identity, perspective and desire in the human community (and perhaps also in all creation - the community of the cosmos) relates us all to what humans have for ages called God. Jesus the Messiah lived in a constant state of awareness of his relatedness to God (a state he consistently called "The Kingdom of God") and invited his followers to experience the "drawing near" of this Way of being in community with others and, through them, with God.
The fourth Gospel includes Jesus' bold claim that he was constantly motivated and moved by the will of God: "The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19 NRSV). This understanding of God's will involves not necessarily (or merely) knowledge we can know; those who inhabit the Kingdom of God experience life animated by God's desire - God's love for all creation and all humanity. Life in Christ cannot be reduced to a system of belief - it reorients my identity entirely in union with God and the whole of creation. And this radical reorientation makes possible a new life in Christ, inspired and empowered by God's love for all.
Dallas Willard, a contemporary Christian theologian, has defined the Kingdom of God as "that place where God's will is perfectly done". The opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 bears witness to the fact that "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and connects the concepts of God's Kingdom and God's will. Later in the same prayer, Jesus reverses the formula, where God's forgiveness of "us" reflects our own forgiveness of "others".
Like the Body of Christ metaphor, the Kingdom of God encompasses all creation in a cosmic perspective that redefines our identity. New actions and behaviors that reflect a deep respect and regard for others flow from this identity "in Christ". Jesus radically defined this new identity for his disciples by inviting each one of us to become a "servant of all". Thomas Merton, in his introduction to The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the fourth Century writes: "Love takes one's neighbor as one's other self...It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word. Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother [or sister]. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self."
Choosing to serve others involves a mastery over the delusion of our selfish desires that frees us to love others. Laying down (aside) our lives for the sake of God's love for the Other leads us to share in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah in our lives. We become the Body of Christ dwelling in the Kingdom of God. Doing for others as we would have done to ourselves results from this expanded notion of Self - this behavior signifies that Jesus has accomplished the transformation of our individual, solitary life into the life of God. We are One, even as Jesus and the Father are One.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Kevin Roose Finds Friendship at Liberty
I recently read "The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University" which describes Kevin Roose's semester "abroad" at Liberty University in an attempt to bridge the gulf that separates evangelical culture from the mainstream. Liberty, the school that the Rev. Dr. Jerry Falwell built in the heyday of leading the Moral Majority movement, stands at Ground Zero of the culture war between Christian Fundamentalism and Secular America. Roose, a sometime Quaker at Brown University who assisted A.J. Jacobs writing "The Year of Living Biblically", spent a semester as a student at Liberty to search beyond the distorting stereotypes of evangelicals to find friendship and understanding.
Roose's ground rules (matriculate incognito and no cheap shots) dictated that this bridge crossed one way from his progressive point of view to the more conservative, dogmatic religious point of view. When Roose came clean and identified himself the following semester (during a return visit to Liberty from Brown) as an undercover writer, his friends at Liberty lamented the lost opportunity to reconsider the ways they might have cleaned up their act if they had related to him as an observer rather than an insider. That said, they trusted what they felt was a genuine friendship with "Rooster" enough to look forward to his book about his experience with them at Liberty.
That, and they grieve that he is not in fact a born again believer in Jesus.
The chief learning of this study involves the transcending power of friendship. If Roose fails to thoroughly explore the impact of some of the negative aspects of evangelical culture (e.g., tolerance for violent language toward homosexual persons and an educational model that stifles inquiry), he takes pains to describe Liberty students as a far more diverse, interesting and sympathetic group of people than their opinions reveal.
From the outset of his experiment, his family and friends fear that he will not be able to hide and will be singled out for ridicule. But their worst fears involve what might happen to him if he converts to evangelicalism - a fear Roose shares. In fact, he does convert to admiration for the power of profound support (love?) in this closed community. So while he refuses to cow to the young earth creationism taught at Liberty (one of only twelve post-secondary schools that teach it in America), he appreciates the depths of analysis involved in his Bible survey and religious and theological history courses. And though he cannot reconcile himself to the casual attitude about hostility directed against homosexual persons, Roose comes to crave the experience of love he feels when a Liberty student or professor prays over him.
During Roose's semester at Liberty, a student at neighboring Virginia Tech went on a killing rampage that prompted Liberty students to pray for healing for the victims (as well as interpreting the killing as a mysterious if troubling aspect of God's will). At the end of the semester, the legendary Dr. Jerry Falwell himself succumbed to a heart attack and died, days after Roose authored the last print interview Falwell granted. And as with the Liberty students themselves, Roose paints a complex picture of Falwell, ultimately praising him for his authenticity, even when that authentic style demonizes others in God's name.
Throughout the book, Roose wonders what will change in his life as a result of his semester "abroad" at Liberty. And though he is unwilling to acknowledge Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior by semester's end, he returns to Brown powerfully affected by his Liberty experience. A Liberty professor articulates for Roose the power he has experienced in prayer by telling him that whatever else prayer accomplishes, prayer changes the one who prays. This change and the experience of being cared for and loved when being prayed over, stand as the most powerful aspects of Roose's experience at Liberty.
The other major impact Liberty has on Roose involves the "liberty" inherent in the many restrictions of the "Liberty Way", a massive code of conduct restricting everything from movie watching to relationships between women and men. On the down side, Roose questions Liberty's hyper focus on sexual morality while ignoring social morality. Yet Roose acknowledges the freedom he experiences as he attempts to live within the confines of the highly restrictive moral code.
At Liberty, Roose enjoys waking up in great physical health on Sunday mornings, refreshed instead of dehydrated and hung over. And the Liberty dating experience, confined to chaste conversation and chivalry, opens up an opportunity to relate on a powerfully intimate level that sexual intimacy ironically circumvents, in his experience. Even the worship experiences, while not convincing Roose of the soundness of the ideology in the sermons, nevertheless draw him into an experience of being cared for by a community that surrounds him with support and calls him to join in their expressions of praise and joy.
When Roose reveals his ruse, his former friends at Liberty express their dismay only that he has refused to receive the gift of salvation in Jesus they have offered and with which they have surrounded him at Liberty. Even so, they encourage him to take the better parts of his experience as to season the "world" outside Liberty with salt and light. And though Roose will never again threaten passers-by with eternal damnation in order to evangelize them (as he did as part of a Spring Break evangelization team in Ft. Lauderdale), he does offer to pray for a friend who travels to a dangerous country.
Perhaps the saddest moment in the book involves a statement a Liberty student makes after a day of "cold call" evangelism. After negative encounters with nearly everyone she approached, the woman tells the group that she has resigned herself to a life isolated from the non-Christian community, whose members will shun and ridicule her for her beliefs.
Roose stakes his semester on the premise that evangelical followers of Christ can enjoy friendship with non-evangelicals and people of other faith traditions, or no faith traditions, setting aside their theological and ideological differences. The fact that he managed to do so only by posing as an evangelical student at Liberty fails to support his thesis. Yet Roose was certainly aware of the divide, and managed to enter into genuine friendships with most of the students at Liberty. And while he did not convert to evangelical Christianity, he returned to Brown having made peace that passes understanding.
Roose's ground rules (matriculate incognito and no cheap shots) dictated that this bridge crossed one way from his progressive point of view to the more conservative, dogmatic religious point of view. When Roose came clean and identified himself the following semester (during a return visit to Liberty from Brown) as an undercover writer, his friends at Liberty lamented the lost opportunity to reconsider the ways they might have cleaned up their act if they had related to him as an observer rather than an insider. That said, they trusted what they felt was a genuine friendship with "Rooster" enough to look forward to his book about his experience with them at Liberty.
That, and they grieve that he is not in fact a born again believer in Jesus.
The chief learning of this study involves the transcending power of friendship. If Roose fails to thoroughly explore the impact of some of the negative aspects of evangelical culture (e.g., tolerance for violent language toward homosexual persons and an educational model that stifles inquiry), he takes pains to describe Liberty students as a far more diverse, interesting and sympathetic group of people than their opinions reveal.
From the outset of his experiment, his family and friends fear that he will not be able to hide and will be singled out for ridicule. But their worst fears involve what might happen to him if he converts to evangelicalism - a fear Roose shares. In fact, he does convert to admiration for the power of profound support (love?) in this closed community. So while he refuses to cow to the young earth creationism taught at Liberty (one of only twelve post-secondary schools that teach it in America), he appreciates the depths of analysis involved in his Bible survey and religious and theological history courses. And though he cannot reconcile himself to the casual attitude about hostility directed against homosexual persons, Roose comes to crave the experience of love he feels when a Liberty student or professor prays over him.
During Roose's semester at Liberty, a student at neighboring Virginia Tech went on a killing rampage that prompted Liberty students to pray for healing for the victims (as well as interpreting the killing as a mysterious if troubling aspect of God's will). At the end of the semester, the legendary Dr. Jerry Falwell himself succumbed to a heart attack and died, days after Roose authored the last print interview Falwell granted. And as with the Liberty students themselves, Roose paints a complex picture of Falwell, ultimately praising him for his authenticity, even when that authentic style demonizes others in God's name.
Throughout the book, Roose wonders what will change in his life as a result of his semester "abroad" at Liberty. And though he is unwilling to acknowledge Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior by semester's end, he returns to Brown powerfully affected by his Liberty experience. A Liberty professor articulates for Roose the power he has experienced in prayer by telling him that whatever else prayer accomplishes, prayer changes the one who prays. This change and the experience of being cared for and loved when being prayed over, stand as the most powerful aspects of Roose's experience at Liberty.
The other major impact Liberty has on Roose involves the "liberty" inherent in the many restrictions of the "Liberty Way", a massive code of conduct restricting everything from movie watching to relationships between women and men. On the down side, Roose questions Liberty's hyper focus on sexual morality while ignoring social morality. Yet Roose acknowledges the freedom he experiences as he attempts to live within the confines of the highly restrictive moral code.
At Liberty, Roose enjoys waking up in great physical health on Sunday mornings, refreshed instead of dehydrated and hung over. And the Liberty dating experience, confined to chaste conversation and chivalry, opens up an opportunity to relate on a powerfully intimate level that sexual intimacy ironically circumvents, in his experience. Even the worship experiences, while not convincing Roose of the soundness of the ideology in the sermons, nevertheless draw him into an experience of being cared for by a community that surrounds him with support and calls him to join in their expressions of praise and joy.
When Roose reveals his ruse, his former friends at Liberty express their dismay only that he has refused to receive the gift of salvation in Jesus they have offered and with which they have surrounded him at Liberty. Even so, they encourage him to take the better parts of his experience as to season the "world" outside Liberty with salt and light. And though Roose will never again threaten passers-by with eternal damnation in order to evangelize them (as he did as part of a Spring Break evangelization team in Ft. Lauderdale), he does offer to pray for a friend who travels to a dangerous country.
Perhaps the saddest moment in the book involves a statement a Liberty student makes after a day of "cold call" evangelism. After negative encounters with nearly everyone she approached, the woman tells the group that she has resigned herself to a life isolated from the non-Christian community, whose members will shun and ridicule her for her beliefs.
Roose stakes his semester on the premise that evangelical followers of Christ can enjoy friendship with non-evangelicals and people of other faith traditions, or no faith traditions, setting aside their theological and ideological differences. The fact that he managed to do so only by posing as an evangelical student at Liberty fails to support his thesis. Yet Roose was certainly aware of the divide, and managed to enter into genuine friendships with most of the students at Liberty. And while he did not convert to evangelical Christianity, he returned to Brown having made peace that passes understanding.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Oil Spills, Prayers and Babies with Eyedroppers
The Louisiana legislature officially declared Sunday, June 20 a Day of Prayer in the wake of repeated failed efforts by BP and the US government to stanch the relentless flow of oil into the Gulf in what has become the worst environmental disaster in modern history. The lawmakers invited people to invoke the hand of Providence to heal this wounding of the earth and it's inhabitants because we have grown frustrated with humanity's efforts to handle this crisis.
This call to prayer prompts in myself and in our society an exploration into the nature of prayer and the God to whom we pray. We refer to disasters of this scale caused by storms as "Acts of God" regardless of our theology. Predictably, reaction from the New (read: "loud and proud") Atheists among us assumes the knee-jerk caustic tone of mockery and derision. God is a delusion, they say, and an infant sucking up an eyedropper of oil on the beaches accomplishes more than the prayers of any deluded multitude.
Yet religious adherents of any flavor would be hard-pressed to deliver incontrovertible evidence of the kind that skeptics demand that prayer actually "works". And it would be hard to imagine anyone, regardless of their religious fervor, who in their heart of hearts expects that the combined prayers of the faithful will in some demonstrably miraculous way turn the tide of this monstrous environmental disaster. More on that thought later. For starters, if prayers somehow moved God to intervene in a way wholly inconsistent from the way of the world in which this disaster occurred, we would be forced to contend with an incomprehensibly capricious God.
The skeptics compare the apparent passivity of prayer to action and agency (the ability to affect action) in the world. Entering this debate, I am intrigued and frustrated by the false dichotomy of action/inaction or cause and effect presumed by the principal antagonists. My love for God-in-others informs and in enriched by my search for Truth. I spend much of my time listening to stories of ways in which the practice of hope creates fertile ground for new life - in a symbiosis that transcends the boundary between the spheres of the physical and metaphysical. The Scriptural invitation to "pray without ceasing" recognizes the ubiquitous nature of prayer, not only in this boundary zone, but extending deeply into all realms of existence.
My daughter senses this symbiosis in prayer. We talked about the false dichotomy implied by the debate between skeptics and believers over the "usefulness" of prayer in response to the current environmental disaster in the Gulf. She suggested that the most powerful promise of prayer in this situation would be the creation of a sense of culpability and repentance in the experience of prayer. This experience of repentance, she believes, would lead to a communal response to this crisis and to the cultural practices that fostered it.
Prayer, in this perspective, serves as an analog to the efforts of BP to drill relief wells that will render the frantic, ineffectual efforts to cap the damaged wellhead moot. Like the relief wells, prayer holds out the possibility of reaching the foundation of a cultural pattern that has inevitably led to this current disaster. I join the skeptics in using the word "possibility" above because the practice of prayer cannot guarantee this broadening of perspective, nor can it determine the actions or effectiveness that might follow such spiritual and communal consciousness. Yet without this awakening, ignorance and chance must necessarily govern all "action", like leaving the cleanup to an army of infants with eyedroppers - the blind leading the blind.
We who follow Jesus the Messiah grope in this kind of darkness as well. Yet moments of clarity and vision dot the landscape of uncertainty, creating enough of a pattern and perspective - even a Presence - we are boldly hopeful enough to name God. Our prayers enfold us in God as they bind us to all humanity and all creation. The prayers of the faithful (and hopeful) create a vision that makes possible a life free from the prison of systemic evil. We hesitate because we know that the power of prayer lies precisely in it's relentless call to die to the blindness we confuse for sight in order to raise us to new lives in a realm where God's will is perfectly done.
In America we have learned to hedge our prayers by passing the ammunition (and in this case, the eyedroppers). Yet if this present crisis could catalyze something truly transformative, we (believers and skeptics alike) would do well to put away our childish notions of effectiveness and open ourselves to the possibility of new life in a vast communion that extends far beyond our garages and climate-controlled SUV cabins. What a tragedy it would be to simply clean up our mess while hurtling toward the brink of greater disaster in the blindness that causes this and many other disastrous collisions of unconsciousness.
So I will continue to live in a state of prayerful awareness and anticipation. I join others, skeptical and faithful, who have ceased a fruitless search for a bigger eyedropper. Though I am still captive in a world encompassed by myself and those I love deeply, surrounded by strangers and darkness, I have yet seen intimations of a larger, more comprehensive creation that refuse to leave me alone in my delusions. And with each moment in prayer, the realm of God draws nearer - and with it a new birth into a communion far, far beyond the confines of this womb of myself.
This call to prayer prompts in myself and in our society an exploration into the nature of prayer and the God to whom we pray. We refer to disasters of this scale caused by storms as "Acts of God" regardless of our theology. Predictably, reaction from the New (read: "loud and proud") Atheists among us assumes the knee-jerk caustic tone of mockery and derision. God is a delusion, they say, and an infant sucking up an eyedropper of oil on the beaches accomplishes more than the prayers of any deluded multitude.
Yet religious adherents of any flavor would be hard-pressed to deliver incontrovertible evidence of the kind that skeptics demand that prayer actually "works". And it would be hard to imagine anyone, regardless of their religious fervor, who in their heart of hearts expects that the combined prayers of the faithful will in some demonstrably miraculous way turn the tide of this monstrous environmental disaster. More on that thought later. For starters, if prayers somehow moved God to intervene in a way wholly inconsistent from the way of the world in which this disaster occurred, we would be forced to contend with an incomprehensibly capricious God.
The skeptics compare the apparent passivity of prayer to action and agency (the ability to affect action) in the world. Entering this debate, I am intrigued and frustrated by the false dichotomy of action/inaction or cause and effect presumed by the principal antagonists. My love for God-in-others informs and in enriched by my search for Truth. I spend much of my time listening to stories of ways in which the practice of hope creates fertile ground for new life - in a symbiosis that transcends the boundary between the spheres of the physical and metaphysical. The Scriptural invitation to "pray without ceasing" recognizes the ubiquitous nature of prayer, not only in this boundary zone, but extending deeply into all realms of existence.
My daughter senses this symbiosis in prayer. We talked about the false dichotomy implied by the debate between skeptics and believers over the "usefulness" of prayer in response to the current environmental disaster in the Gulf. She suggested that the most powerful promise of prayer in this situation would be the creation of a sense of culpability and repentance in the experience of prayer. This experience of repentance, she believes, would lead to a communal response to this crisis and to the cultural practices that fostered it.
Prayer, in this perspective, serves as an analog to the efforts of BP to drill relief wells that will render the frantic, ineffectual efforts to cap the damaged wellhead moot. Like the relief wells, prayer holds out the possibility of reaching the foundation of a cultural pattern that has inevitably led to this current disaster. I join the skeptics in using the word "possibility" above because the practice of prayer cannot guarantee this broadening of perspective, nor can it determine the actions or effectiveness that might follow such spiritual and communal consciousness. Yet without this awakening, ignorance and chance must necessarily govern all "action", like leaving the cleanup to an army of infants with eyedroppers - the blind leading the blind.
We who follow Jesus the Messiah grope in this kind of darkness as well. Yet moments of clarity and vision dot the landscape of uncertainty, creating enough of a pattern and perspective - even a Presence - we are boldly hopeful enough to name God. Our prayers enfold us in God as they bind us to all humanity and all creation. The prayers of the faithful (and hopeful) create a vision that makes possible a life free from the prison of systemic evil. We hesitate because we know that the power of prayer lies precisely in it's relentless call to die to the blindness we confuse for sight in order to raise us to new lives in a realm where God's will is perfectly done.
In America we have learned to hedge our prayers by passing the ammunition (and in this case, the eyedroppers). Yet if this present crisis could catalyze something truly transformative, we (believers and skeptics alike) would do well to put away our childish notions of effectiveness and open ourselves to the possibility of new life in a vast communion that extends far beyond our garages and climate-controlled SUV cabins. What a tragedy it would be to simply clean up our mess while hurtling toward the brink of greater disaster in the blindness that causes this and many other disastrous collisions of unconsciousness.
So I will continue to live in a state of prayerful awareness and anticipation. I join others, skeptical and faithful, who have ceased a fruitless search for a bigger eyedropper. Though I am still captive in a world encompassed by myself and those I love deeply, surrounded by strangers and darkness, I have yet seen intimations of a larger, more comprehensive creation that refuse to leave me alone in my delusions. And with each moment in prayer, the realm of God draws nearer - and with it a new birth into a communion far, far beyond the confines of this womb of myself.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Holy Week 2010 - A Resurrection of the Body of Christ
During this season of Lent, I've been consistently invited into sacred spaces of waiting - with people who are dying to this life (and wondering without knowing what happens next), within silence together with other pilgrims not searching for answers but content with stillness together, experiencing worship itself as a pilgrimage (and enjoying the journey together), and waiting in the confusing timelessness of the hope of healing from an injury.
So much of this waiting is new to me - though it shouldn't be - that it feels in many ways like a new birth. This season of Lent, I have with the earth shaken off my slumber - even as my (limping) pace has slowed to allow time for silent waiting in the presence of God (?) that defies any attempt to contain or explain it (or even to claim it). As the earth leans again into the warming rays of the Springtime sunlight, I have been reminded everywhere I turn that while I can participate in Spring, I cannot hasten its arrival. So, too, with God.
Lent this year has been a journey of waiting - but as I have slowed my spiritual pace, I have begun to notice many things that escaped my attention before. As I have settled into places of tension in my life, and in the life of my family and church community, I have found that submitting to the death of my attempts to flee or to relieve this tension in destructive ways has given rise to the realization that this tension will not kill me - it becomes a catalyst for creativity and abundant life.
I have begun to see the community of people gathered at Skyline for the treasure we are - by no means perfect but holding onto a vision of God's love for all people with passionate intensity and faith. Seeds that have been nurtured in the warmth of the tension we have experienced for several years now are beginning to sprout and to give some indication of the potential explosive growth in grace and love through our life together: in reaching out in love in many tangible ways to people in our surrounding community (people searching for sanctuaries of wellness, healing and recreation for the body and the soul).
Jesus, who invites us to this place of tension and creativity, paid with his life for his refusal to bow to the pretend gods of convention and compromise in his day. Yet he continues to invite us all to follow him into a realm of God's presence and power breaking in on all who are willing to wake from our contented sleep into a vision of a world where peace, love and merciful justice prevail. And because that vision conflicts constantly with our world and with our lives, to walk into this vision is to walk into unbearable tension. Jesus reminds us with his life and with his death that this tension cannot kill or silence us - only our fear of it.
Love binds us - binds the poles of tension to relate them if not to reconcile (or to remove) them. In this love we live and move and have our being. Jesus reveals this Love to us and calls us to life in Love - Love that birthed us into existence, and that now calls us into Life in all its Abundance. Follow me, he calls relentlessly and patiently. To the cross, where you will surely die to a false notion of your self-hood that hopelessly traps you in a prison of your own making. Follow me through the cross and beyond, to a place of existence beyond yourself - to a place of being for others, of communion in that Body that transcends all dividing walls and participates in an ongoing ministry of reconciliation for all people - for all creation.
So don't let's rush too quickly into Sunday. How can we ever hope to interpret the emptiness we will find there unless we have watched and waited with Jesus, who knows and shows us to be the Way where he is going? It's Wednesday, time for silence. And tomorrow the time of our betrayal will come. Yet he will not refuse us a place at his Table, knowing what it means to dip bread together with us in a common bowl. Then the howling crowd, and the terrible silence of Friday afternoon, when he will have to die alone because we will have deserted him (not wanting to walk into that pain). And a Sabbath that forces us to rest in (an uneasy) peace. And then (we know) another week will begin. A dawning of a new creation as the Spirit hovers fitfully yet purposefully over the face of the deep darkness.
Let there be Light. And he will shine in us.
So much of this waiting is new to me - though it shouldn't be - that it feels in many ways like a new birth. This season of Lent, I have with the earth shaken off my slumber - even as my (limping) pace has slowed to allow time for silent waiting in the presence of God (?) that defies any attempt to contain or explain it (or even to claim it). As the earth leans again into the warming rays of the Springtime sunlight, I have been reminded everywhere I turn that while I can participate in Spring, I cannot hasten its arrival. So, too, with God.
Lent this year has been a journey of waiting - but as I have slowed my spiritual pace, I have begun to notice many things that escaped my attention before. As I have settled into places of tension in my life, and in the life of my family and church community, I have found that submitting to the death of my attempts to flee or to relieve this tension in destructive ways has given rise to the realization that this tension will not kill me - it becomes a catalyst for creativity and abundant life.
I have begun to see the community of people gathered at Skyline for the treasure we are - by no means perfect but holding onto a vision of God's love for all people with passionate intensity and faith. Seeds that have been nurtured in the warmth of the tension we have experienced for several years now are beginning to sprout and to give some indication of the potential explosive growth in grace and love through our life together: in reaching out in love in many tangible ways to people in our surrounding community (people searching for sanctuaries of wellness, healing and recreation for the body and the soul).
Jesus, who invites us to this place of tension and creativity, paid with his life for his refusal to bow to the pretend gods of convention and compromise in his day. Yet he continues to invite us all to follow him into a realm of God's presence and power breaking in on all who are willing to wake from our contented sleep into a vision of a world where peace, love and merciful justice prevail. And because that vision conflicts constantly with our world and with our lives, to walk into this vision is to walk into unbearable tension. Jesus reminds us with his life and with his death that this tension cannot kill or silence us - only our fear of it.
Love binds us - binds the poles of tension to relate them if not to reconcile (or to remove) them. In this love we live and move and have our being. Jesus reveals this Love to us and calls us to life in Love - Love that birthed us into existence, and that now calls us into Life in all its Abundance. Follow me, he calls relentlessly and patiently. To the cross, where you will surely die to a false notion of your self-hood that hopelessly traps you in a prison of your own making. Follow me through the cross and beyond, to a place of existence beyond yourself - to a place of being for others, of communion in that Body that transcends all dividing walls and participates in an ongoing ministry of reconciliation for all people - for all creation.
So don't let's rush too quickly into Sunday. How can we ever hope to interpret the emptiness we will find there unless we have watched and waited with Jesus, who knows and shows us to be the Way where he is going? It's Wednesday, time for silence. And tomorrow the time of our betrayal will come. Yet he will not refuse us a place at his Table, knowing what it means to dip bread together with us in a common bowl. Then the howling crowd, and the terrible silence of Friday afternoon, when he will have to die alone because we will have deserted him (not wanting to walk into that pain). And a Sabbath that forces us to rest in (an uneasy) peace. And then (we know) another week will begin. A dawning of a new creation as the Spirit hovers fitfully yet purposefully over the face of the deep darkness.
Let there be Light. And he will shine in us.
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