Interruptions

One thing [Peterson's life story] makes clear is that vocation is not so much about what we want as about how we respond to God's interruptions in our lives.

-- Christianity Today, Review of The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

Nothing Destroyed

There is nothing destroyed by sanctification but that which would destroy us.

-- William Jenkyn

Weddings

In anticipation of a good friend's wedding yesterday, I was thinking about why I like weddings.  There are many things, but the thing that stuck out to me yesterday was the sense of hope they represent.  Hope of what?  I think weddings represent a hope we have that our desire for perfect union will be satisfied.  This is a massive desire, to be sure.  So big, in fact, that we often end up looking right around it for other things than acknowledging how much it dominates us.  This is a good desire, by the way, a God-given desire...for it is with Him that we desire a perfect union.

Weddings are times that reconnect us with our desire for God, with others, with another person.  They remind us of the perfection we long for in our relationship with all things.  This is probably why weddings can be painful, too, because they remind of what isn't, what hasn't happened, and what has happened...that leaves us far short of the beauty and hope of such events, and the perfect union.  But the pain of these things is never enough to overcome the power of our desire for all that is good with another person, with this world, with God.  For as great as this power is, God's desire for such perfect union is even more profound, more deep, more beautiful.  And, He will not be stopped in His pursuit of His bride. 

I enjoyed the wedding immensely.  I enjoyed even more what it represented...about my and our desire for perfect union.

My, Oh My

The beauty of this day already has my eyes full of water, tears of gratitude that I could even take such things in so deeply.  Tears of joy at the prospect of a dear friend's wedding.  The eyes moistening from such a brilliant response of the earth to this morning's sun after a day of slow and lazy drizzle.  The wordless satisfaction of the swelling of healthy competition from a good workout, the kindest of words from a son, the beauty of marriage...all speak straight into the center of me, and make me feel more alive than I've dreamed possible.

A friend (thanks, Randy) passed along a book written by a man I have come to deeply respect over the years. Parker Palmer's A Hidden Wholeness is proving to be a capturing of something that resonates within me about as deeply as anything I've known on the "shape of an integral life, the meaning of community, teaching and learning for transformation, and nonviolent social change".  He observes "how quickly words can cut loose from human reality" and credits his wife for helping him stay tethered to three questions as he writes:  Is it worth saying?  Is it said clearly?  Is it said beautifully?

Here's an example:

There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door out to the barn.  They all knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.

The analogy's connection to our broader existence is striking. Another blizzard-reference characterizes something I recently tried to capture in my own life about 'a strange merger' I feel within me:

The blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of my soul.

-- Leonard Cohen, The Future

My, Oh my.  I have only begun to live within and without.  And, at times, the splash of sun on the tiniest drop of last night's dew can just about bring me to my knees in awe of it all.

Just Because

I was talking with a friend today about life, and things that we would like to be doing...job-wise, study-wise, other-wise.  We agreed that it's possible that not everything we would like or think is good...is necessarily good for us.  A lot of times, we need to simply just take the next step towards what is right in front of us, rather than wishing we were somewhere else.

Just because I want to, doesn’t mean I should.  Just because I don’t want to, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.

Inner Ripening

No one can know what secret inner ripening can come from suffering and sorrow. All we know is that every individuals life is priceless - that each is dear to God.

-- Christoph Probst

...love that imagery, inner ripening, not often how I have thought about suffering / sorrow over the years. But, now it seems quite accurate.

Freedom

Jesus continually communicated freedom -- not freedom to go your own way but freedom to relate to God through the intimacy of grace.

-- keri wyatt kent, Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity

Just Don't Know

We just don't know what will happen in life, we just know what's at the end.  And that should make all the difference...!

Sex Economics 101

What's your 'take' on this subject? What are we translating to our kids regarding what they are facing into today's 'market'?

It seems that what is modeled speaks the loudest. After that, what are we actually teaching / saying about such things...with our words (or, lack of them)?

...click the pic for the article.

Beauty

Beauty is often only considered skin-deep in our culture. No wonder we often live like that is all there is...because we seem to think that's all it really is. But beauty is so much bigger, so much more.

For example, when we observe that something is a thing of beauty, what are we saying? What kinds of things do we describe this way? How about a 'well-oiled' machine, like a high-quality car? How about a team that performs very well together? How about an significant accomplishment that has a manifest result? We say such things are a real 'thing of beauty'. Something we don't fully understand, but can deeply appreciate...can be a real thing of beauty. And, of course, things in nature or artwork can be beautiful.

What about the human dimension of things? Women, for example, can be beautiful. The strength of a man can also be beautiful. A relationship between a man and woman can be beautiful. As can a relationship between a father and son, or mother and daughter.

How about another dimension of beauty; is it possible that a woman's beauty is enhanced by the strength of a man, one that allows her to relax, to offer tenderness, gentleness? To me there is little that surpasses that beauty and yet it can be so easily tarnished when a woman seeks the beauty (glory) of a man. Likewise, the strength of man is a beautiful thing, especially when it is sacrificial, other-centered. A woman, like nothing other, can enhance this kind of beauty, when it supports the risks a man can take when extending his strength towards a world that needs it.

In other words, there seems to be an even more beautiful beauty, a combined beauty, that emerges out of individual masculine and feminine beauty.

I hope our sons and daughters can catch a glimpse of these realities of beauty, a kind that will take them past the skin-deep versions so splattered about by our culture.

Who Could

...even think of such beauty?

Sanitized God

I DON’T PRAY to a sanitized God, an airbrushed God, the God of the silver screen. I pray to the God who put the green into nature and fire into the tongues of men; to the God of ceaseless change, who gives with one hand and smites with the other; to the God of the concentration camps and to the God of the bullies so many of my Jewish brethren have become. I pray for the humanitarians and I pray for the barbarians and I pray to stop pretending I can always tell them apart.

-– Sy Safransky

I really appreciate the honesty here, especially in light of the 'airbrushed' God so often marketed by the church. A lot to reconcile...a lot of reconciliation needed. ...including with me. A sanitized God really puts me in an ungodly position, one of judging Him by who I want Him to be...which, of course, leads to an equally ungodly position of judging what others are.

Self-conscious

I often feel quite self-conscious after speaking in church...which I did that recently. I put a lot of time into it and only a couple of people even mentioned it to me, and then only in passing. In another era of my life, I would have tried to 'read' a lot into that -- condemning only before condemning myself for my inadequacy. Now, I realize that I can make a lot of things 'about me' that really aren't. So, I just worry about it less than I used to.

But, I would be lying (at least to myself), if I pretended that I'm not self-conscious about such things at all. When I spoke, I talked about the need to acknowledge the day-to-day things we feel to God, if not to others. And, that not doing so, under the pretense of not 'needing' to do so, really cuts off others and myself from the opportunity for access to some deeper things internally. So, I took my own admonishment and went to God with my 'self-consciousness'.

Two ideas surfaced. One is that in doing such a thing, like speaking in church, I really do not want to do a dis-service to the Truth by mis-representing something about God. I feel this pretty deeply, more deeply than I had realized. This led me to the realization that I likely have to admit that it is impossible not to mis-represent Him...and that, in some unexplainable way, that should be freeing.  But I still don't want to mis-represent Him...either by carelessness or intent.

The second thing that surfaced in my thinking is that almost nothing I do is completely absent of self-serving, self-promotion. So, some of what I want in such situations is simply for people to praise me for things I do, at the very least for the effort I expend. This is nothing to be proud of and not necessarily a revelation, but just admitting it again, out load...takes some of the hot-air out of the pressure I likely put on people to make me feel good.  To whomever I have done that to, I profoundly apologize.

...so, here again, I receive something deeper by taking my own advice and confessing the simplest and most normal of things. Admitting what is going in within me, rather than denying it.

Thriving Child

A child does not thrive on what he is prevented from doing, but on what he actually does.

-– Marcelene Cox

When Was the Last Time?

When is the last time you felt really listened to?

Anyway

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

-– Kent M. Keith

Faith

Faith, to me, seems to be something along the lines of...the willingness to acknowledge the uncertainties of this life (uncertainties about myself, uncertainties about life, uncertainties about God, etc.) and turn to God with them, as opposed to the commonly perceived benefits of simple denial, self-determinism, or the false medications offered by our world.

Emotional Constipation

...if there were such a thing, what do you think 'emotional constipation' would be?

Here's a stab at it:  The inability or unwillingness to recognize or utilize what our emotions indicate to us.

It leads to a number of things:

• Explosiveness
• Addictions
• A kind of forfeiting of goodness to which perceived bad feelings can lead

I was talking to my daughter the other day about the tendency we have to keep things inside. While there is a place for common sense and controlling our tongue, I think many times our silence is not so much prudence as it is self-protection. We don't want others to see some of the things that go on inside us.

The truth may more be, though, that we don't want to see the things that go on inside us either.  And, what we don't realize is that the self-protection we broker with regard to others and their view of us is really a weapon against ourselves. Our silence can cause us not to speak to ourselves, or perhaps put a differently, to not put words to the reality we are experiencing. When that happens, we form a kind of denial about things, about life, about ourselves. Denial at this level can be damaging to who we are, because it allows a false sense of self to grow.

When our kids a little, we say "don't hit, use words".  What we don't often realize as adults is that we often learn to not do either one.  ...and the result is often an experience of someone who is constipated.  Pretty uncomfortable.

Dazzle Gradually

The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man go blind.

-– Emily Dickinson