Reading and Reflecting

Let me confess at the start that I am a reader.  I usually have two to three books going at a time; a real live book, one in the Kindle, one or two on my iPad,  plus an audiobook playing in my car CD player. I will typically read somewhere between forty to fifty books in a given year. I read the paper most days and a magazine or two as time allows.  I love to read, so this is not a slam on readers.

I was standing in a friends library looking at all his books the other day and it set me to wondering...well ok, to wondering again...this has actually been on my mind for a while.  What I am wondering is, how much impact does all this reading (See above) have on me?  For all my reading, am I more wise, do I better understand how the universe works?  Do I live life in the manner that my heart truly desires to live, much less how God would have me live?  I guess what I am wondering is, from where does real wisdom and a transformed life come?

I have been reading Paul's letters to the Thessalonians, a small church plant, and his letters to Timothy, a young man he had mentored for some time.  I have seen whole shelves of commentaries on these letters, all those books again, and have been struck by how little Paul actually has to say.  He in fact commends the Thessalonians on their love for one another at the beginning of the letter and then later acknowledges that he has very little to write to them about  loving one another, because, God's Spirit is telling them all they need to know.  In both cases it would seem that Paul would have much to say, all kinds of instructions, theology to explain, and practical application to practice, but he is remarkably brief.  Does he believe, really, that God's Spirit is teaching them all they need to know.

In her book Team of  Rivals, Doris  Goodwin contrasts the education of Abraham Lincoln  to that of his rival for the presidential nomination, William Seward.  Seward grew up in a wealthy home with a library of books and received an Ivy League education.  Lincoln grew up with about five books, one being his Bible, and was largely self educated.  Goodwin notes that Lincoln seemed to be able to take his few books and with deep reflection on the few come away with more wisdom than garnered from the many books available to his rival.

We live in the information age. With the touch of a key we can have a plethora of information on any topic imaginable.  We have a data overload, but have difficulty knowing what data is relevant  or how it is all connected.  Our teaching institutions are more and more geared toward transferring information to the student rather than teaching or allowing them to process information.  We are bombarded with information from every conceivable source, yet most of us seldom take the time to reflect or deeply process its relavance, its meaning, or where it fits in this story we live.

Processing, sorting out what is relevant and how things are connected, takes time and takes place in the context of the world view or the story we live in. As Francis Schaeffer says, most of us get our world view the same way we get the measles, we catch it from those around us.  What is my "world view"?  Where did I get it, really?

Jesus says in John 14:26 that His Spirit would teach us all things and bring to remembrance the thinks He has taught us.  In Colossians 1 Paul tell us that , “All things come together in Christ,”  Does "all things" include, all things?  Is God's Spirit available to give us insight on science, politics, raising kids, or the Pythagorean theorem.  Even more important, does He give us insight on how those all connect?  Or does He just do "spiritual" stuff?  What is "spiritual" stuff?  Is it a different category or compartment of life unrelated to the rest or is it possibly the matrix that gives context and connection to life itself?  Is Spirit that which connects all things?

How does one hear the Spirit speak?  I wish I could say I was an expert at this, but I'm not very good at hearing Him speak most of the time.  There are some things that do seem evident and therefore instructive.  One, He is a person and speaks when He wants to speak or deems it time to speak.  Two, the Psalms tell us over and over to wait on Him.  Waiting leads to presence, He comes when the time is right.  We will never hear Him if we are not present to Him and to one another.  Three, He speaks with a quiet voice most of the time.  Quiet voices are drowned out by noise and activity.

Waiting, reflection, quiet, presence, rock solid trust in the One who teaches, brings to mind what I need to remember.  Do these things characterize my practice of life?  Without them can I reasonably expect to gain wisdom or experience transformation in my life?  The Pickles cartoon in today's paper says that, "Aging is the cost of maturity."  Am I getting my money's worth?  I wonder.

Well, as I said, it has been on my mind for a while...now it is "out of my mind"...that could be dangerous.

My Sweet Dog

My Sweet Dog

It ‘s been five months since I lost my dog. Her name was Abby, named for King David’s wife, Abigail.  I have always been impressed with Abigail’s spunk and wisdom in the face of crisis and decided my black lab puppy needed someone to live up to.

My Abby was a sweet, gentle, and attentive companion.  She loved to retrieve a ball and could even pitch it back to me with a toss of her head.  When she was young she would retrieve as long as I was willing to throw, tossing the ball back at my feet and waiting expectantly for the next throw.  When she was old, one throw was enough.  It was as though she wanted to prove she still remembered how, but was just too busy holding down the carpet by the fire to waste her time with childish games.

How do you describe the hole left by your dog when she is gone?  The place on the floor by your bed you once had to avoid when you got up to pee in the middle of the night? The thump of her body on the hardwood floor as she moved from one napping site  to the next.  The regular four to five times a day stroll into yard for her bathroom breaks.  The joyful greeting every time you came home.  The nose pushed between my wife and me when we hugged in her presence or thrust under the newspaper or book if there was inadequate attention directed her way.  The butter wrappers licked clean and the treats savored with relish.  The emptiness beside me when I walk the field for exercise and prayer in the mornings.  I could go on, but you get the drift.

Abby taught me much about how to live a life of simplicity and faith.  Do I walk with the faith and trust in my Father that she unconditionally gave to me?  Do I trust His timing and provision with the grace she showed to me?  Am I as sad when He leaves and does His return become the highlight of my day?  Do I treasure going with Him where he goes, even if it is to the dump in Old Blue, my friend Harold’s truck?  Do His friends become mine simply because He says it is ok?  Do I look out for His family because I consider them to be mine?  Do I love Him unconditionally regardless of circumstances?  Does the sound of His voice give me comfort and direction?

The biggest lesson, I think, came at the end.  The tumor ravished her body and sapped her strength, but it never took the wag out of her tail or the look of trust in her eye.  When she couldn’t stand on her own and I had to carry her outside she accepted it with grace giving me that knowing look as if to say, “Aren’t I a mess?”  

Abby lay on the table, chin across her leg and seemed not to notice as the vet shaved a spot on her leg.  She seemed lost in her own thoughts, content with my stroking of her ears and soft assurances that she was my “sweet dawg”.  When she felt the prick of the needle she raised her head to look at what had caused the offense, then looked at me as if to say, “Is that ok?”  I stroked her head and assured her it was ok and that she was, my sweet girl.  At my assurance, with complete trust, she peacefully lay her chin back across her leg and quietly went to sleep.

I sure miss my dog...

Arrivals and Departures

Arrivals and Departures

Our dear fiends Dan and Lisa became grandparents for the first time last night while we slept.  I remember the night Drew, our first grandchild, was born. The deep warmth inside, the sense that all is right in the world, feels like it must burst out in celebration.  There is nothing quite like the arrival of this bundle of love, a grandchild.  We rejoice with them and look forward to watching Dan become putty in his granddaughter Caroline’s tiny hands.

We received a call early this morning as Jan and I sat on our back porch listening to the rain, saying our morning prayers, and reading our daily readings.  While Dan and Lisa’s grandbaby was making her grand entrance last night our friend Mary Rainey made her grand entrance into the presence of Jesus.  We celebrate again, but this celebration is harder because it doesn’t bring deep warmth and a feeling that all is right in the world.  This celebration comes with a deep sense of loss and a world at odds with what is intended.

This juxtaposition of arrival and departure reminds me of a day last summer in the sacred space of my fathers hospital room as he lay just hours away from his long awaited day of glory.  He had suffered a massive heart attack five days earlier, rallied for a couple of days allowing for sweet good byes, last words, and long hugs from those he loved most.  Now he was unconsciousness and lay peacefully in his bed.  The family had gathered in his room and my daughter in law placed her laptop on the table beside him.  It was an unbelievable moment as she played us the ultrasound video, taken that morning, of her new baby five months into its journey to join the family.  The 3-D ultrasound image flickered across the screen and we oohed and aahed at fingers, toes, the beating heart, and then sat in stunned silence as little “Katherine” turned and looked us in the eye.

Some one asked the question, “In the midst of sadness like this, how do you balance remembering the past and looking forward to what is new?”  What a great question.

It will take someone with more wisdom than me to answer that question.  I guess I wonder if balancing is really the issue here.  How can you possibly balance the home going of saints like Mary and Lolo, my Dad? And how can you ever begin to anticipate the joy, the hope, the new life in the Katherines and Carolines given as the Saints fade away. 

Could it be it is not about balance?  How can you possibly balance the life, relationships, and memories of one deeply known and loved with all that will be new?  Maybe it is not an exchange of one for the other but a wholeness encompassing both that somehow, in ways we can never understand, fills us more deeply than we can imagine.  Maybe it is about hope and receiving…the memories and the expectations.

The words to a song come to mind.  Maybe you know the tune and can sing along.  It gives me chills to sing these words.

You give and take away,

You give and take away.

You give and take away,

Blessed be Your name, O Lord.

Blessed be Your Holy Name.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.  Blessed be Your Holy Name!

Why is Sex Fun?

Why is Sex Fun?

It is a beautiful morning as I walk out on the field for my morning constitution.  The early morning fog has almost gone and the sun is just peaking over the trees on the East.  Everything is green from the recent rains and all is at rest.  The summer has been harsh and the green seems to consist only of scrubby weeds pushing through the greening grass.  The wild flowers of spring are long gone and it is too early for fall to paint its bright colors around the borders of the field. 

What does a late summer morning offer to highlight the pervading green, I wondered as I made the bend at the top of the hill and wound my way closer to the trees and over the dew wetted grass?   I will on occasion pick a bouquet for my wife of whatever the field has to offer, but was not expecting today to be very productive.  But then there they were…a clump of white Queen Ann’s lace here, some purple iron weed there, over here some goldenrod, a bush with green berries I cannot name, and an assortment of interesting weeds which bundled together created a most interesting offering for my sweet wife.

This surprise of diverse color hiding in all the green of the open field reminded me of a column by Joe Bayly many years ago titled, Why is Sex Fun?  I borrowed the title once before when I was teaching an adult Sunday school class.  I announced the title for the next week’s class and we had almost twice as many folks as normal show up.  Marketing is everything…

It was kind of a bait and switch, really.  Joe Bayly pointed out the extravagance of a God who though he could have made us see very adequately in black and white chose instead to allow us to see in vivid color and then proceeded to fill creation with unbelievably diverse color in everything from sunrises and sunsets, painted deserts, birds, flowers, fall leaves, tropical fish, and mixed weeds.  He marveled that even in places we may never go or see, God sees fit to outfit in vibrant and diverse colors and interesting shapes and sizes.  Then his punch line, “why is sex fun?”  He observed that God could have made us like amebas that reproduced by simply dividing.  Very effective and can be pretty rapid if you have ever played host to the little parasites…but not much fun.  But He didn’t, He made it fun.

The first commandment was very utilitarian given its time and place at the beginning of creation, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  It is an interesting God, a good God who wraps this first “duty” in the the joy, the mystery, the exhilaration, the intimacy, the deep satisfaction, and yes the FUN of sex.

So…it might seem like a stretch, but to me the surprising discovery this morning of beauty erupting out of the weeds for no reason except to declare the glory of a good God reminded me of that simple question.  Why is sex fun?

Well, I got to go. I’m going to give my wife the flowers…this could be fun.

See You Later Wylie

See You Later Wylie

My daughter and grandson disappeared down the drive with my wife, headed for the airport and home to San Antonio. When the brake lights went out and the car turned left onto the street I found myself unable to hold back the tears.  It has been a wonderful week with my daughter home and the joy of wooing the affections of Wylie my newest grandson of 8 months.  He is a bundle of energy, smiles, and love that a proud Papa could never resist.  To have my sweet daughter home again has been a wonderful treat made the more enjoyable by the gathering of her brother and his wife, her sister and the other grandkids to celebrate life and family around our table…I am so blessed.

So why the tears?  I am not sure I know except that one more separation seemed for the moment more than I was prepared to bear.  Life seems to be full of them of late, either threatened or real.  I lost my Dad last summer, my dog this spring, and twice this year we thought we had lost Jan’s dad, Wylie.  It seems such a struggle some times to keep everything together in a world where so much is coming undone.

I have far more for which to be thankful than to be sad.  I met a man today whose wife went to another state to visit his daughter and new grandchild. For reasons he and no one else can fathom, she jumped off a bridge rather than returning home.  He seems far more together after 6 months than I could imagine myself being if I were in his shoes.

I just finished reading a book today by Lee and Bob Woodruff, the ABC anchor, who suffered a near fatal head wound covering the war in Iraq.  The miracle of his recovery and the unbelievable resilience of his wife and family are an inspiration, but at the same time the tragedy of his injury and so many like him highlights the terrible mess of life.

So, am I just depressed?  Should I take a Valium and get a grip on things?  I don’t think I’m depressed and I feel strangely comfortable, maybe not manly, but comfortable with my tears.  The pain of separation and the celebrations of time together seem to join in the tears.  The pain and the hope are felt with equal intensity and I long for the day when He will wipe away the tears.  I find myself drawn with the psalmist to the words, “How long, O God?”  Chris Wright, in The God I Don’t Understand, notes that today we are prone to ask God, “Why?’  The Hebrews in the time of the Psalms asked, “How long?” 

Certainly there are plenty of separations to bring tears, but there is also great hope in the redemption that is already present and the sweet promise of what is to come.  So I will savor the good life brings along with the bitter…just pass me another tissue.

As You Go or As You Gather?

As You Go, or As You Gather?

As you go, make disciples…  (Mt. 28:18)

These are the final words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and these words are commonly viewed as Jesus’ commission to us as we become His body in the days after his ascension.  It seems to be intended to express both the goal and the methodology of Jesus for us.

The goal is to make disciples, followers of Jesus.  A follower is one in whom there is the desire to be with Him both in proximity (presence) and purpose (the glory of God).  It has apparently been in the plan and purpose of God from the beginning to create a people for Himself that would glorify Him.  In the beginning He created Adam and Eve and charged them with the task of propagating His people through procreation and family.  We managed to make a mess of things the first time around so He began again with Jesus to create again a people for Himself.  Having begun again a people for Himself, He has once again trusted and entrusted us with propagating His people, the Church, this time by disciple making.

The methodology is, “As you go make disciples.”  As you go can look like almost anything.  My work, my play, my family, my worship, or what ever I do in word or deed, as the Apostle Paul says can become disciple making when I come to view it as such.  Disciple making is a relational business, life on life, face on face.  Significant transformation of any kind, including from death to Life as the disciple John describes, always happens in the context of relationship.  Disciple making is a “giving” activity, not a “taking” one.  Love is giving of my self; it is a sacrificial act costing me something.

It strikes me as I look at how we often practice being the body of Christ that we have adopted a methodology of disciple making that is an “as you gather” rather than as you go.  As a pastor once said to me, “I am just trying to create a place where people can come (Gather) to be discipled.”

I may be choking on a gnat while swallowing camels here, but let me try to contrast some methodologies to explain what I mean.

• As you go is incarnational, going where the undiscipled are, not asking them to come to where you are.
• As you go means discipling out there where you are “going,” living life.  This can be where we work, play, raise our families, shop, or live in our neighborhoods. As you gather tries to create a place and programs away from those places for transformation to take place.
• As you go moves into a community and asks how it can serve, as you gather moves into a community and creates an organization that offers membership requiring (Asking) you to conform to “gathering” norms.
• As you go values the discipler, his vocation, and location and requires that we trust and entrust the discipler to do his/her work by the power of the Holy Spirit. As you gather tends to create structures and programs that take the discipler out of their location and creates a staff of "professionals" to do and regulate rather than trusting and entrusting them.
• As you go values the “out there”, the work, the play, the family, the neighborhood, as relevant context and tools for disciple making.  As you gather feels the need to create context (Small groups, programs) and tools (4 laws, bridges, etc.) in order to begin disciple making.
• As you go seeks to be salt and light in a culture, as you gather becomes an alternate culture.

It is not my premise that all structure or programming is bad, they are many times necessary, but I do think that both structure and programs should serve to enable “as you are going” rather than inhibit or compete with it.  It is often easier and more comfortable to gather for the purpose of disciple making, there is more control, more uniformity, efficiencies, etc, but we are not called to a life of ease or comfort, we are called to faithfulness and obedience.  If the Master said to do it as we go, I have to believe that there is purpose in the methodology as well as the goal.

I confess that as I write these thoughts I am pretty clueless as to how to implement them in an organized church setting, especially in a mega church setting.  To do this would “deconstruct the church,” again the words of a pastor.  I would agree with this sentiment, though I would use the word reconstruct rather than deconstruct.  I am convinced that the “as you gather’ mentality predominates in our churches and until we recognize what we are doing we will never begin to move toward something different.  If we begin to think differently we will begin to act differently. We will never think differently if we do not question our current paradigm.

Wondering about 9/11

Wondering about 9/11.

We can all remember what we were doing and where we were as the events of 9/11 began to unfold on that fateful day.  I was working on a dental patient who would periodically interrupt me and point to the overhead TV screen as first one plane and then another struck the twin towers, then other planes crashed in Pa. and into the Pentagon. This followed by the horror of the towers crumbling into oblivion.  Remembering can conjure up many emotions; fear, anger, and sadness come readily to mind.    9/11 has become more than just another memory, it has become one of those landmark signposts around which we define our history and has significantly shaped who we are becoming as a people and how we view the world we live in.  I find myself wondering, how has it has shaped us?  How are we different because of what we experience?

One question in particular has drawn my attention.  What impact does the church have in the shaping what is happening?

It was interesting, for example, that immediately following 9/11 there was an immediate shift in interest in spirituality, prayer, and faith.  Houses of faiths of all kinds experienced a significant increase in attendance.  It became instantly more relevant to speak of faith, prayer, and God.  Even the media, which normally excludes any spiritual dimension to life as they “report” events seemed more apt to make mention of prayer and faith as we witnessed acts heroism, loss, fear, and grief, and began to try to make sense out of what we were seeing and experiencing.

As we noted the influx of people into churches and houses of faith, I like many, was skeptical that this interest in things spiritual would last.  The expectation has become the reality as over a relatively short period of time we have reverted back to the same patterns with decreased attendance and a marginalization of things spiritual in our daily lives.

Now I wonder… if the events of 9/11 exposed something missing in our lives as would seem to be indicated by our fear, grief, interest in spirituality, and questions that turned so many to the Church for answers and comfort, what is the meaning of their subsequent leaving in essentially the same numbers?  Does it say something about them, or about us, the Church?  If they came seeking help and comfort for their fears, doubts, and wounds and have now left, does that mean we had little to offer, so they moved on?  It can certainly mean that they did not want what we had to offer, because a call to follow Jesus is not always a popular one, but should we be quick to jump to that conclusion?  When a national trauma of that magnitude exposes such a deep hunger in so many, did/does the Church have a credible answer, or more importantly, a credible life to speak into the times?  Does my/our rush to cynicism expose a weakness in them or in us?  And if it exposes a weakness in us, what is my part in that?  I wonder?