Sit down. Be quiet. Stay Away...

Simplify. How does one do it these days?

This week I am reading from two sources, one Paula Huston and another Wendell Berry.  I find a strange dance underway between what I assume to be two strangers to each other.  Each, however, calling us away from the economies that now so dominate our lives.  

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

-- Wendell Berry

I become increasingly convinced that we must choose to create space in our lives. It too rarely will choose for us. But we are feeding on something unhealthy by staying in the panic-ed pace of our lives. Doing more is not being more. In fact, it is probably 'being' less. Look for the things that compel us towards hyper-activity; even at the so-called spiritual things that do so. What is really driving that?

Take time...and create some space.  Simplify.

The Dance Toward God

I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not by his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or academia, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not more simple. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is a gate; the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsom labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like the birds, dress him like the flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Most believers on the path have found that life is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze a man into association with the owner heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and sweaty brow, head in hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this leads to God. God is not merely the reason behind existence, nor the curer of ills and confusion. Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints; a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God. And the dance is not so graceful as we might think. For a while we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. He lowers His head, whispers soft and confident, “You will dance to the beat of ‘Amazing Grace’ or you will not dance at all.” So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a taxing dance to learn.

But once learned, don’t we glide. And don’t we sway. And don’t we bury our head in His chest. And don’t we love to dance.

-- Donald Miller


 This passage was an excerpt from Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, which was later reissued as Through Painted Deserts.

These Inward Trials

I asked the Lord, that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request,
and by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel
the hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

‘Lord, why is this?’ I trembling cried,
`Wilt thou pursue Thy worm to death?’
`This in this way,’ the Lord replied,
`I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou mayst seek thy all in Me.’

-- John Newton

Thank you Milt, for offering your faith to your son.
Thank you Joe, for recognizing this path in your faith.
Thank you Julie, for walking it with us together.

Thank you, Mr. Newton for putting it into words...for when we forget this is what is really going on.

Awakenings

There is nearly nothing as satisfying as a morning run through the woods.  On a crisp morning like today's, the sun just slants is shine through the briared-tangle of all things woody.  Every leaf and twig are glanced across the diamond-laced frosted-side that yawns itself into the advancing rays.  And the morning seems exuberant as it calmly calls everything awake one more time.

When I think that this happens each day whether I am there to admire it or not, something deep within me awakens as well.

Seductive Tyranny

OK, so I am reading this book for Lent called simplifying THE SOUL and I am almost afraid to continue.  It is a powerfully desirable series of blow after blow to the order of my life.  An order that, often, even I despise.  I was magnetized even by the title, in part, because of the range and depth of complexity I feel so often in my life.  'Simplify' has become an unspoken search of mine for some time now (I must be getting older).

The other problem is that nearly every page I read offers me something that nearly jumps off it, leaving me feeling a bit like a robber by keeping it only to myself.  ....which means that there is risk in me re-typing very significant portions of the book, should I continue reading it.  Maybe I'll stop.

Maybe I won't...after all, it is Saturday Morning.  So, here goes another one....

Pray that you might taste the sweetness of being liberated from the seductive tyranny of beautiful possessions.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

What are the 'complexifying' things in my life so beautiful to me that I don't even recognize their seductive control over me?

Confession's Path to Humility

An Elder was once asked when the soul acquires humility. He answered, "When it thinks about its own vices."

For years, two patient priests have listened to long, funny stories, fielded earnest theoretical questions, and been subjected to cartloads of charm, but heard very few genuine confessions from me. Confession still makes me uneasy: it is all about exposing the most hidden, shameful aspects of myself to another human beaning. And the only time I am willing to go through it is when keeping those secrets is more painful than the embarrassment of revealing what I've so diligently pushed out of sight and out of mind.

But none of this is easy. Psalm 19 recognizes our difficulties in dealing with concealed sin, which we can easily ignore for so long we lose aware of its presence.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

26

Working at something together is better than working on each other.

It took more than a few years for us to discover this, but after 26 of them (as of yesterday), we are enjoying the benefits of this wisdom.

Happy Anniversary, Tami.

Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the Day…
  This day-a gift from you.
This day-like none other you have ever given,
  or we have ever received.

This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the task of the day,
for we are already halfway home
  halfway back to committees and memos,
  halfway back to calls and appointments,
  halfway on to next Sunday,
  halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
  half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
  but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes-

We begin this day with the taste of ash in our mouth:
  of failed hope and broken promises,
  of forgotten children and frightened women,
  of more war casualties, more violence, more cynicism.
We ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
We can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with some confidence,
only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday we submit our ashen way to you-
you Easter parade of newness.
  Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
  Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom.
  Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.

Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

-- Walter Brueggeman

Lent's Recalibration

I'm surprised each time anew by the knowledge that I'm once again undergoing a spiritual 'recalibration'.

I am released from the bondage of complexity...by practicing simplicity...I have no idea how far I have once again strayed off the path.  Instead of humbly following Jesus, I've let myself get sidetracked by a myriad of temptations; overly ambitious creative projects, delusions about my own importance, worrisome relationships, secret small addictions, stubborn resentments, and a hundred forms of self-indulgence.  Simplicity clears my vision enough to see how far I've wandered.  This is a humbling experience.

For centuries, humility was seen as a key component of a healthy spiritual life.  In more recent times, humility has lost a good deal of status.  Instead, we prefer to focus on the development of self-esteem, on achievement, and on self-fulfillment; our temptation is to dismiss humility as a relic of the unsophisticated past, a time when people supposedly knew next to nothing about psychology or good mental health.  We also tend to link the promotion of humility with authoritarian efforts to keep people passively disinclined to rock the boat. 

Growth in humility, however, doesn't come naturally.  As human beings, we are woefully tempted toward self-elevation (vainglory), and stony withdrawal from God and our fellow creatures (pride), along with a myriad of other sins no less destructive (gluttony, lust, greed, envy, self-pitying depression over what we want and can't have, simmering resentment, anger).  Not dealt with, such sins fill us with hopelessness and confusion, and drastically complicate our relationships.  They keep us focused on our selves, block our ability to love, and isolate us from God.

As a wise friend of mine says, "Sin is complicated." The obverse of this little rule is that humility, the ground of goodness, is simply and open.

The beauty of the Lenten season is that is encourages the development of a humble heart.  In Lent, we are invited to look deeply inside, identify what is impeding our ability to follow Christ along the path of humility, and begin applying antidotes.  Early church tradition is rich in the wisdom of soul simplification and offers a multitude of spiritual disciplines to counteract the temptations that muddle our lives.  The season of Lent gives us the opportunity to devote significant time to this endeavor.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

...to spiritually recalibrate.

I wonder how humility, especially the lack of it, affects our sense of reality and our ability to keep ourselves free from the bondages of this life (so aptly described above).  At times, we are shoved into humility.  At times we are shoved out of it.  Is it my lack of humility that causes my soil to grow the weeds that so entangle me?  When I am reversed from this growth, am I not becoming un-proud again...that is, humble.

Perhaps this is part of the value of choosing things, like Lent, that reveal our need for humility.  And, perhaps it is only through humility that we can truly accept resurrection.

Slant

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
Success in Circuit lies

-- Emily Dickinson

Knowledge & Wisdom

Amassing knowledge and gaining wisdom are two different things.

So, what hinges the difference between knowledge and wisdom?  Among other things that distinguish the two, knowledge isn't enough at times.  It has been said that knowledge is power.  And, that appears to be the case, especially when knowledge is commoditized.  But wisdom steps away from commoditization, from self-importance.  Wisdom is willing to wait for its power.  Because it knows that life's architecture is on its side...it is patient.  It rarely uses force because truth can be heavy enough, when it needs to be.  It is not proud.  It is content.

And, wisdom seems to be something you pray for.  ...especially when you know you need it.

But godliness with contentment is great gain.

-- 1 Timothy 6:6

I Have Learned...the Secret

...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
...I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation....

-- Philippians 4:11-12

...so what is the 'secret'? And, does it have to be 'learned'?  Why?  How?

Does the secret involve the relationship between learning and contentment?  I wonder if we have to learn to be content because, naturally, we aren't.  We don't come into the world (more like kicking and screaming for disrupting our comfort zone).  And, from then on, it's a striving to get something...which is almost the opposite of being content with what we have, with what we are.  In our striving, we (desperately at times) seek to understand what is going on, why things are happening the way they are, what we need to do to overcome them...striving to understand (joy).

The language of the fall is discontentment.

-- Ann Voskamp

The reality is that it takes 'the peace of God' to transcend our desire to understand.  And, it is this peace that will guard and protect us...or, teach us to be content.

But, we have to learn this...this secret.  In other words, we have to learn by practice, to be accustomed to it, to even become intimately acquainted with, to develop a new habit in the way we think and operate.  And, in order to do this, it would stand to reason, that this is not something we simply read about one evening in a book...it is something that we acquire (learn) over a lifetime.  And, in case we are wondering, apparently even Paul had do learn it.


The fear of the LORD leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

-- Proverbs 19:23

Keep Your Lives Free

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have...because....

-- Hebrews 13:5

It is interesting if you stopped after the 4th word above...you would have to ask a question like, How?  How do we keep our lives free?  This seems to indicate that freedom is related to the need for more, and recognizing something that we don't need after all because of something else that we know is true, that we live by (contentment).  With that in mind, we don't need the bondage of money to trade for things that we don't really need.  Several quotes below on money and riches....

Be free.

Riches Without Law

Our dangerous class is not at the bottom; it is near the top of society. Riches without law are more dangerous than is poverty without law.

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Being Rich

To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.

-- Logan Pearsall Smith

Am I Noticed?

As we think through growing up and becoming a woman with our daughter, the deeper questions about our existence as men and women lay right below the surface.  Beneath the way women are often encouraged to present themselves in our culture seems to be a question along the following lines:  "Will I be noticed?"  Or, put more threateningly, "What if I'm not noticed?"

To satisfy this, many women seem to do the obvious with what the culture says it takes to be noticed...using their physical appearance.  But, getting 'noticed' physically is not really the noticing that is more deeply desired.  What happens to the question when a woman is not able to be physically noticed, due to things like genetics, age, etc.?  ...it remains doesn't it?

It's no wonder why many women in our age seek this route to get their question answered...our culture is throbbing with the extremes of what it takes to get the attention of being noticed.  But, the very effort of this route, actually creates a deepening need for more and more of it because it creates dullness at the very same time...with the only solution being to being even more extreme about it.  A friend of mine put it this way, "Immodesty is a terrified attempt to be 'seen'...".

Men ask the same question, but the form of it seems to be more along the lines of 'do I have what it takes to make it in this world?'  And, their effort to satisfy this is just as endless.

The problem is that both men and women are using external sources to satisfy the answer they seek.  The more hidden truth is that outside sources, by definition, will actually perpetuate the question, not answer it.  The answer comes from who I am, not who people say I am...by the way they notice me.  In other words, it comes from something inside us, not outside us.  It comes from our deepest nature, not the one we have become used to (enculturated by).  I am somebody first, because of who I have been created to be, not because of what I get those around me to say about me.

In the short-term, this is a hard-sell, especially against the onslaught of our culture regarding such issues.  Fortunately, though often still painfully, we have a life-time to work through all of this.  And, the truth is still the truth, regardless of how much it gets kicked around.

The Same Goal...Joy

Without exception...all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.

-- St. Augustine

I never really connected this thought before, it is joy that we seek above all else and it is joy that the angels announced to mankind.  Thus, the great hymn, Joy To The World.

Perhaps this helps explain why disappointment is so often present in our lives.

Prayer for Kids

I pray for my kids...for their well-being.  For their hearts...to be bent towards God.

I pray for wisdom on how to reflect the heart of God towards them.  ...to avoid adding unnecessarily to their resistance to Him; a resistance they share with all of us.

I pray for a patience...that will allow me wait on and trust in God to use life to drawn them personally and deeply to Himself...knowing that this will be painful both for them and for me.  But, it will work in the end...as it did for me.  ...there is no other way for God to become personal to them.

Grandeur and Splatters of Disappointment

Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here. Who has the time or eyes to notice?

All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

From a wonderful read on finding the gratitudes that need to be found in the mundanes of daily living. Thanks, Veisa, for sharing this book with me.

Absolute Indifferent Magnificence

I’m dogging her discreetly, wondering:
What don’t they get? Everything, probably.
What it’s like to be lugging her particular load,
wanted or not, into the uncertain future

...

all of us putting one
semi-discouraged foot in front of the other
while above us the absolute indifferent magnificence
abounds, abides;
from a certain perspective even our ignorance is dazzling.

-- Alison Luterman

...for the rest of the poem, click here. It is good to know that we have a sense of the larger goings-on of things. However, we must acknowledge that we are most certainly card-holding members of the dazzlingly ignorant.

After Silence

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

-- Aldous Huxley

Inconsistencies

It seems to be appealing to hold people's inconsistencies against them.

Why do you suppose that is?

...could it be that we tend to defend our view of ourselves via our own consistency? And, when that is threatened, we look for 'more inconsistency' in others? ...either way, it doesn't seems like such things are really about 'consistency'. It seems more like we're desperately trying to justify, defend, or protect something about ourselves.

Opportunities

Opportunities are seldom labeled.

-- John A. Shedd


 ...shared by a friend, David Baker.

Without Forgiveness...Nothing Survives

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it,
no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Vulnerability vs Competence

It is our vulnerability, not our competence, that makes us accessible to the world.

...another unexpected gift from suffering or struggle in our lives.

Many people would disagree with this, mostly the competent.  I disagreed with this notion for the longest time myself.  But, the competent seem to largely only gather those like them around themselves.  They form a nearly undetectable alliance that keeps them together, the rest mostly just feel distanced by them...separated, if you will.  The myth is that people will like me or will want to be like me, IF I'm competent.  The reality seems to be that they just keep their distance.

I tend to be competent or, at least, viewed that way.  My wife and I were more than surprised by the people who reached out to us (who felt they could do so) when we went we've gone through periods when we don't appear to have it all together...job loss, etc.  I suspect it was, in part, because we seemed more like others during those times...vulnerable.

Mother Teresa didn't act primarily out of her 'competence', did she (even if she was good at it)?  Jesus didn't relate out of his 'competence'...or out of something else?

The Grey

Among other things that speak deeply to me about this movie, the main character's assessment of his dad was that he was very hard, looking for weakness everywhere. He went on, however, to also note his father's love for poetry, which he observed was 'perhaps his way of asking forgiveness'.

Do not fear, only believe.

-- Mark 5:36

Fear

We must learn to not fear our fear.

More often than not, fear is used to manipulate us from without...and from within.  But, while not all fear is illegitimate, some of it is.    So the question becomes what will we do with our fears.  What will we turn to in it?  I think this is something we must learn...over a lifetime.

For example, learning yesterday of my wife's melanoma, created fears within her (and within me).  What naturally arose within us as we were reminded of our mortality?  Within me, strong inclinations to anticipate what might happen leaped forward.  ...as did desires to find ways to avoid the possibly overwhelming nature of all of the unknowns.   But, we are leaning to look past these inclinations and temptations.  Rather than turn to things to help us manage, we learn through such things to turn to Someone.

Eyes

What news will tomorrow bring? Good? Bad? The future is full...of uncertainty.

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.

-- Oswald Chambers

Our circumstances bring us to a fork in the road, with one road leading only towards the circumstances themselves and the other towards what the circumstances can point us towards.

Idealist & Pragmatist

I am an idealist.  I am also a pragmatist.

I am usually an idealist as long as pragmatically possible.

Breathing into Prayer

I need to pray. And, often times, I need to breathe myself into it.

I have been breathing into prayer for several years now...as I exercise. I need to do it, to realign myself. ...from the things that gather my anger within me. Anger from the violation of my sin against others, from their violation against me, from the evil forces of this world that lie to me about what is true. I get out of alignment easily. I need to pray. But, I have trouble just starting right in.  I have learned that often I need time to breathe myself into it.

This breathe-praying helps me. It helps me see things more accurately. It knocks the edges off that grow so quickly; the ones that distort others, that beckon me to retaliate against them...directly or in less obvious ways. These lies tell me that I am empty, that I need something, that I need to fill something. Breathing and praying re-centers my being. It leads me back towards wholeness.

I need to pray.

Retaliation

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness....

-- 1 Peter 2:23-24

I still tend to maintain a spirit of retaliation...towards the things that threaten me.  What kinds of things?  Where do I do it?    ...many of them are referenced here.  So the question becomes, why do I do it?  When I feel threatened in my relationships, what can I learn to turn to?  What keeps retaliation at bay?  The answer seems to have something to do with 'entrusting myself to God' (rather than continuing to rely on my own where-with-all).  ...only He can right the wrongs anyway and my efforts to maintain fairness often seem to be fraught with self-interest, self-preservation, self-promotion.

...and in case I'm wondering (or you are), read the last verse of Collosians 3.  Part of what can keep me from retaliation is more full view of the retaliation I deserve.

Within This Strange and Quickened Dust

O God, within this strange and quickened dust

The beating heart controls the coursing blood
In discipline that holds in check the flood
But cannot stem corrosion and dark rust.
In flesh's solitude I count it blest
That only you, my Lord, can see my heart
With passion's darkness tearing it apart
With storms of self, and tempests of unrest.
But your love breaks through blackness, bursts with light;
We separate ourselves, but you rebind
In Dayspring all our fragments; body, mind,
And spirit join, unite against the night.
Healed by your love, corruption and decay
Are turned, and whole, we greet the light of day.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

Emptiness

Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

-- Simone Weil

Like Me

As much as we hate to admit it (especially to ourselves):

We really would prefer that people be more like ourselves.

...I'm thankful that God doesn't require...or allow it.

Pain is Never Permanent

Pain is never permanent.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

More on pain here...

Unrivaled Beauty

OK, so there are many things beautiful. Regarding my post yesterday, what stands out to me is that what often makes things feel 'unrivaled' in the moment is the moment itself. For example, the next time I am overwhelmed by beauty...a waterfall, a mountain range, a joy, an act of love...I will likely feel the same sense I felt yesterday about the scene of our snow on pines in the woods -- what can match it? Something about beauty itself is that way, isn't it?

Where have you seen 'unrivaled' beauty?

Snow on Pine

Snow on pine is nearly an unrivaled beauty.

Soul - Eternal Piece of Private Property?

Modern Christianity, then, has become as specialized in its organizations as other modern organizations, wholly concentrated on the industrial shibboleths of ‘growth',’ counting its success in numbers, and on the very strange enterprise of ‘saving’ the individual, isolated, and disembodied soul. Having witnessed and abetted the dismemberment of the households, both human and natural, by which we have our being as creatures of God, as living souls, and having made light of the great feast and festival of Creation to which we were bidden as living souls, the modern church presumes to be able to save the soul as an eternal piece of private property. It presumes moreover to save the souls of people in other countries and religious traditions, who are often saner and more religious than we are. And always the emphasis is on the individual soul. Some Christian spokespeople give the impression that the highest Christian bliss would be to get to Heaven and find that you are the only one there—that you were right and all the others wrong. Whatever its twentieth-century dress, modern Christianity as I know it is still at bottom the religion of Miss Watson, intent on a dull and superstitious rigmarole by which supposedly we can avoid going to ‘the bad place’ and instead go to ‘the good place.’ One can hardly help sympathizing with Huck Finn when he says, ‘I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it.’.

-- Wendell Berry

Among other things, an interesting adjective is used here, in an effort to make a strong and (I believe) well-intentioned, if not astute, point.  Note the use of the word 'modern' Christianity...as opposed to something else.  Given the voracity of these charges, what is the Christianity that became modern?

There is risk here.  A risk that such things take on a philosophical transcendence from which a return to the utility of daily living never occurs.  What action is needed?  What action is required?  What keeps this from just being another amusement of intellectual controversy?

We Don't Know

We don't know what any given day will bring. Unexpected pleasantry, joy. Devastating news for ourselves or someone we love. A success; a failure. Significant inconvenience or relief. Perhaps today will simply be more of the same than something different.

Without knowing what, but knowing that anything is possible today, how do I want to live it?

Even if I do know of something significant today, how do I want to live it?

The greatest privilege God gives to you is the freedom to approach Him at any time.

-- Wesley L. Duewel

Anxiety About Losing the Next Generation

Another helpful read from Christianity Today addresses the generational concern about the transmission of faith.  Citing what might at first blush appear too simplistic, Stanley Hauerwas says:

The future of the church is not found in things like this; the future is doing the same thing Sunday after Sunday.

...some may have heard enough already.  But a more careful consideration is warranted.  The article's author, Anthony Baker, goes on:

If young church-goers are coming of age thinking they can trade the gospel message for participation in social causes, and demean the creeds and Communion as disposable husks, then something is indeed broken.

We are misguided, if we assume that getting acculturation right depends on constant novelty.  Teaching children and adults to work with the gospel's words about God, to speak the traditional yet constantly new language of the Christian faith, is the only real "fix" for what ails us.

What children today desire, according to research, is "the realness of authenticity of faith".  What we give them instead is a hastily painted undersea mural.  In the memorable words of Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster, young people "look to the church to show them something, someone, capable of turning their lives inside out and the world upside down".  Most of the time we have offered them pizza.

Read more here...

Wonder and Trust

Wonder with the heart and trust with the mind,
until you can do both with both.

Christian Meditation

How unfortunate that we today know so little of the vast literature on Christian mediation by faithful believers throughout the centuries!

While Foster notes meditation is:

...utterly, utterly up to God.

He also laments:

...if certain chambers of our heart have never experienced God's healing touch, perhaps it is because we have never welcomed the divine Scrutiny.

-- Richard Foster

Gospel is Nothing...Until

The gospel is nothing until I hear it addressed to me.

-- Martin Luther

Prayer - Descending

To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart.

-- Theophan the Recluse

What do we really mean when we refer to the 'mind' and the 'heart'?  What distinguishes these two things?  How would you describe it?

...with some of that work in hand, how would you then relate it back to prayer?

Leonard Cohen -- Old Ideas

Click image to take a listen to a couple of his new songs...

Here is a link Andy Whitman's review...a worthy read.

Poetry

We have a splendid heritage of Christian poetry in English that most church members live and die without ever reading or hearing about.

-- Wendell Berry

Faith and Reason

Many people today act like a someone created a peace treaty between reason and faith after reason won the war.  Reason cedes territory to faith, as long as faith relinquishes its rational claims.  Reason is in the realm of public, objective truth, while faith is relegated to the realm of private experience and personal therapy.

We live in a world that assumes that reason is unbiased, when in fact our reason itself is enslaved to naturalism:  a denial of the world's dependence on God for its creation and preservation, much less redemption.

When it comes to faith, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't think it's true for everyone else. You can have faith in whatever makes you happy, as long as you don't presume to evaluate my faith.  After all, it's mine: deeply personal and not open to public inspection.  We have all experienced a culture that identifies reason with naturalism and faith with feeling.

Religion and spirituality are all about what we feel and think deep within our precious, delightful, individual souls.  While the true God calls us outdoors into a history that sweeps us into it wake.

-- Michael Horton

More from this good article here...

Secrets and Truth

You are the God from whom no secret can be hid,
and we are a people with many secrets,
    that we want to tell for the sake of our lives,
    that we dare not tell because they are deep and painful.
But they are our secrets...and they count for much;
    they are our truth...rooted deep in our lives.

You are the God of all truth,
    and now we bid you heed our truth,
    about which we will not bear false witness...
        The truth of grief unresolved,
        the truth of pain unacknowledged,
        the truth of fear too child-like,
        the truth of hate, as powerful as it is deep,
        the truth of being taken advantage of,
            and being used,
            and manipulated,
            and slandered.

We trust the great truth of your wonderous love,
    but we will not sit still for it,
    UNTIL you hear us.
Our truth -- heard by you -- will make us free.

So be the God of all truth, even ours,
    we pray in the name of Jesus,
    who is your best kept secret of hurt.  Amen.

-- Walter Brueggeman, January 14, 1999

Let Hope Run You Over, too

I would encourage you to read this post.  It is familiar to the human (and my) experience...not constantly, but at one point or another, very common and seemingly universal (not necessarily the exact circumstance, but the perspectives we all share when we are in deep pain).  I have experienced it...the depths of wondering how to go on in midst of pain and the depths of knowing the joy of a redeemed perspective of that pain (and the tears of both).  I continue to think about the role of pain in our lives...what it does to us, what it does for us.  This adds to value to it.  Read it.  Save it.  Share this hope...and let it run you over, too.  ...you have been or will be in both places described, at one point or another in this life.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

-- John 16:33 

Penalty of Affluence

The penalty of affluence is that it cuts one off from the common lot, common experience, and common fellowship.

-- Arnold Toynbee

This is really worth thinking about, especially since it is the 'common' that we have become so driven to get away from. Why? What do we believe this distance achieved will afford us?  Something better...than everyone else gets?  

More often than not, affluence seems to foster distance between people.  Having it often makes me feel better than you, not having it often makes me feel that you are better than me.  'Better than', either way, is a problem...it is an illusion.

Parenthood - TV Show

Wow, another pretty excellent episode this week.  Really hard not to recommend this program - profoundly human.  This one will make you wince, laugh, and cry...like many episodes do.

Reputation / Character

Your reputation is who people think you are, your character is who you really are.

-- John Wooden

Dalai Lama on Humanity

In light of this, are there any changes you would like to make this year?

Breathe

Just breathe.

...sometimes you just need to take so many breaths...just to breathe again.

When I run, for example, I often bring my tensions and anxieties along (who can set them aside?).  And, it takes about half a route of running...breathing -- in-and-out, in-and-out -- before I start to get a sense of things again.  Even hearing myself breathe, helps me slowly realize something significant is going on.

And, then, it occurs.  I start breathing again, metaphorically, breathing again...shedding the thinking and things that often end up encumbering my being.  I rediscover the natural rhythm of things; relaxing and breathing...as the things of life start to go back to their proper place, order, and orientation.

Just breathe.

Thoughts on Asking for Forgiveness

Do you need 'forgiveness' in 2012?  To receive it?  To offer it?  Here is an interesting read from Donald Miller's blog on forgiveness, a topic which always seems to generate lots of engagement (note the comments after his entry).

...seems loosely connected to my recent entry on enemies.

Anyway, what about you and forgiveness...in the year ahead?

The Enemy is not Your Friend

The enemy is not your friend.

Well, that seems a bit self-evident, doesn't it? But, think about it a bit. Don’t we often see those who are our 'friends'...as the enemy in things that we are feeling about life? For example, we act like our spouses are sometimes the enemy. Someone at work or church, or a neighbor; we sometimes view as an enemy. Many times whoever is not cooperating with my sense of how life should work to benefit me...is thought of as someone to oppose, like an enemy. Someone we need to stand up for ourselves against. And, we can live a long time with such a view of others. But, what if 'they' aren’t really the problem we can often think they are? What if they are being used by a real enemy to keep our attention distracted from where the real battle is?

We all have a sense of things we need to fight for...some are good and some aren't.  But, what if the object of our fight is not the other person, at any given moment?  What if the battle is really at a much different level?  What if we are simply being led to believe the problem is with the other person...to keep us focused on a level of fight that we think we can win, with our own effort, with our own ingenuity?  Believing that if we could just change them, if they would just change, if they would stop or start doing this or that, then everything would be OK.  What if the real struggle, though, in them or in us is really with something else, but we live largely unaware that this is true?  What if the nature of our effort could really be more about what we turn to than about who we turn on?

Perhaps, the enemy is not really...our friend, after all.

50th Wedding Anniversary

Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

-- Mark Twain


 To my parents, today; on their 50th Wedding Anniversary,

When I think about 50 years, of just about anything, it pretty much seems like what it sounds like...a long time.  Of course, whatever one would assess as 'long' would have to compared to something.  Compared to all history, compared to the time since Christ ascended, etc. 50 years is not so long.  Compared to one's life span or with many marriages these days...well that seems like a different story.

At the very least, 50 years is longer than my little life...and that, at least at the moment, seems like quite a while.  And, working at a relationship for that long seems...note-worthy, especially in an age of instants -- instant upgrades, instant trade-ins, instant new... of nearly anything.  So I'm impressed by longevity when I see it still happening.  For one thing, it helps me reconsider my own sense of a long time.  It challenges me to consider alternatives to giving up, to quitting when things get difficult.  It provides a context to consider lots of things that short time-frames don't seem to allow much for.  Further, when considered in the context of relationships, even greater pause is provided.  I am grateful that I have paused to consider what I'm seeing when I feel the appeal of the 'shorter route'.  I am grateful because some of that same longevity I increasingly respect in your marriage is benefitting my own. 

Growing old together, while not as fashionable as it used to be, has many wonders; many graces that God knew about long before we learned to agree with Him about it.  I'm so grateful for the example you have laid in front of me -- the joy of longevity, of willingness to stay at something to learn about the surprise of the depths of God's goodness.

Now, it should likely be noted, that longevity in and of itself may not be all that it is cracked up to be.  It, in fact, can be a great cloak over many evils.  But longevity seeking something much better and deeper than the benefits to self is a different matter.  And, that greater calling, to seek the source of loving others provides for something that 50 years together only begins to tap into.  And, I want to thank you, Dad and Mom, for helping me imagine those possibilities by doing the same yourselves. 

50 years together, seeking God, the best you know how...is a wonderful gift to me, a son.  One that keeps on giving as I seek the same in my relationships, and thereby give to our own children.

Praise God for enabling your faithfulness to Him all these years.  And, thank you.


Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

-- I Corinthians 13:7

Snippets

Sometimes, the things that help me identify most with a song are the little snippets or phrases tucked within them.  For example, I really like this song, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, noted on a friend’s blog this Christmas, because of these phrases:

Born to set Thy people free;
    From our fears and sins release us,
    Let us find our rest in Thee.

It hints at what true freedom is really about.  It is really more about what I learn to rest in than in what I am able to get away from or what I can overcome (both of which tend to be very wearying).  I'm grateful for the meaning of these words for my friend and for the reminder they are to me.

Sometimes it is the smallest of things that catch our eye or our attention, that port meaning to and from our lives.

Advent

God, the God of Israel, is not a God that we can force to conform to our purposes. For as Isaiah makes clear, we have been created to conform to God's purposes. This, moreover, is extremely good news because it means that the world as we know it is not without purpose. It can only appear without purpose if we persist in viewing and acting in the world as if God does not exist.

The question, therefore, is not does God exist, but do we. For whatever it means for us to exist, we do so as creatures created, as the universe has been created, to glorify God.

So it matters what sort of persons we are to be if we are to be a people who know how to wait. This is Advent. This is the time of a hastening that waits.

—- Stanley Hauerwas

Oh Holy Night

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining"

Earlier this month I referenced one of my favorite Christmas songs, which is filled with phrases that ring so deep it can almost hurt to take their truth fully in.  I think the phrase above sets the stage so well.  There is something about 'pining' that seems so accurate and so descriptive of our fallen state -- pining away...for what seems like forever.  And, not just in sin, but in missing the point of so much in life; in other words, error.

"Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth"

Have you ever felt your worth?  What if we could...truly know our worth?  What would that be like?  And, he came in order that we could know what he has made us to be.  Without his coming, we would never know and would just 'pine' away.

"Let all within us praise His holy name"

Advent Waiting

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes … and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

—- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It strikes me that something gets freed from the inside, as one learns to wait for it from the outside.

Christmas in Colorado

Click here for more pics....

Politicals

Since I'm on vacation, I've let myself stop and think...about politics.  Wow, why bother, some might say.  Even when I want to, it's a bit hard to avoid the political arena of life, especially these days.  And, there are spots of decent drama, even though they seem to be perpetually overwhelmed by what isn't (decent drama).

I often wonder how this is hitting the next generation.  Forgetting, in the doing of that, about how it is hitting me. I think my leader thought above (I used the word 'avoid') comes from the sense that almost none of the stuff being bantered about seems real.  It feels much more like a lot of posturing about things that aren't real, than substantive work.  I guess I'm just not that into 'positioning' in order to get things done (it doesn't seem very effective anyway) and more interested in having serious conversations about differing points of view and then actually getting things done.  I get the sense that I am not alone in this.

The other challenge is that politics seems to be an awful lot about sweeping generalizations and the search for truth up there somewhere, when it seems to me that the truth is quite simply and much more on the ground.  So, at the risk of sweeping generalizations, here are some of my more specific political thoughts:

1. I have a hard time with the Republican political disposition because it seems to me that it is rather snobby, particularly as it relates to the poor.  This is a serious problem for me, as the heart of the more significant things in life is concerned with the poor.  I see very little room for snobbery.  And, I don't like the 'pull yourself up by your boot-straps' mentality that always seems to be within arms reach for Republicans to swing against the poor.  "Do it yourself; I did"...is a gross misinterpretation of what anyone really has ended up with.  When you're down, this is not what makes the difference.  And, it's not an explanation for why, when you are up.
2. I have a hard time with the Democrat political disposition because it seems to me that it believes that government should solve all the problems, of the poor and of most anything else.  Let's make a law about everything that's wrong.  And, when it believes that, it ends up believing that money is the solution...and that it just needs to be applied more appropriately.  I don't think government is the solution, though I do believe it has a key role in protecting people from some of the really ugly results of capitalism.  Capitalism will crush people with its greed.  Government, in theory at least, can help protect the victims of greed.  But, I also have a hard time with the unconstrained spending of money as the answer to people problems.  Money, in many cases, may actually be the problem.  But, people's problems are deeper than what government exclusively can and should be dealing with.

So, what to do?  Where does that leave me.  Like in a lot of things, I think I need to just stay in it.  Don't disengage.  Do my part...every day.  What about you?  How do you respond to politics these days?

The rhetoric will blow away in a day anyway.  But, probably just not for a while...more later on the people, process, and details (it may be much later...which may not disappoint too many of you).

My Top Christmas Songs 2011

Well, two years have passed since my 2009 version of this, but I must say that not much changed; the ones then are still my favorites this year. Click here.

Collisions

We spend a good portion of our lives colliding with things that we do not comprehend -- like running into things that jar us from our own sensibilities about things.  I remember several collisions along the way:

1. Getting really mad at things during my high school years...not knowing why
2. Questioning whether my faith held muster during my time in Europe and then especially after I returned
3. Realizing that marriage wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped it would be
4. Several situations along the way where I really wasn't letting others be themselves...realizing I wanted them to be more like me
5. The first time I lost a job
6. The second time I lost a job
7. Learning to let God be in charge of my kids

I have noticed similar collisions occurring in the lives of my kids, in my friends lives, in the lives of people I don't know that well.  Makes me think that this is much more a regular part of the design of life than I had originally imagined.

It’s the colliding that gets our attention and us contemplating what all else might actually be going on (like quite Ahas).  It’s starts us on the road of self-discovery, which leads towards one of three paths:

1. Endless and confusing collision – from which we learn nothing...we just plod on, running into one thing after another
2. A belief that we can organize our lives to avoid collisions (life) –  leading us to arrogance of one kind or another, believing that the problem is 'out there' and largely something simply to be solved
3. A recognition that we are dependent (not independent afterall) and not all that self-determining  –  allowing us to accept and offer grace like we have received to others

In time, collisions become more about running into ourselves as we run into others as we learn that they offer us more opportunity than threat (though it is often the threat we feel that provides the opportunity).

Disappointed with Intimacy

The Bible does promise that we can have true intimacy with Christ. But this intimacy, which is mediated through the Holy Spirit, is unlike any other relationship with which we are familiar.

-- John Koessler

It's What We Hide

Reminded me of a beautiful experience yesterday with some dear friends who chose not to hide...and helped give me the permission to not hide either.

...from Donald Miller's blog.

The Sound of Twinkle

The trail peaked out this morning at a point along the stream that compelled me to stop.  To stop and look at what lay before me.  To listen...to the sound quietly filling the air around me.  To take something in that had been just sitting there, almost waiting for my presence to observe it.  Not for my sake, but for its own.

But it ended up being for my sake, too.  I noticed the tiny little berries, red and Christmas-bulb-like dangling from the twigs now surrounding my head.  They lit themselves against the background of that unspeakably beautiful mix of snow and wood in the forest behind them.  I slowly counted...realizing as I did, that the stream had joined the scene with the most complementary sounds.  Its water was positively 'twinkling' as I observed its 'mini-light' friends.  What a wonderful idea, I thought.  Who made all this?  And, why?  The latter didn't matter, I was just thrilled to again take it in.  The sound of visual...in the form of a twinkle.

I'm glad I stopped...or that it stopped me.

2011 Album of the Year - Bon Iver

I love it, too!  Thanks, Blake, for connecting me with Bon Iver.  See Paste Interview.

From a prior post, take a listen.

Smallness: A Shot, a death, and so much...

...I cannot know.  Read the story here....

Sometimes our smallness overwhelms us.

Fences

We all need someone to help us reset our boundaries from time to time.  Prone to wander...so the saying goes. While we tend to resent it at first, there are times when we can see how grateful we are for fences in our lives.  They free us to live within our appropriate limitations.

Ranking Friendship

Ranking friendships is dangerous business.

There is something inherently unfriendly about it -- it reduces friendship towards one thing...me.

Every Generation

Each generation is reacting to the one before and it usually takes about a full generation to realize that's what it's doing, fix things and seek to perpetuate it's repairs on the next one...which kind of keeps the cycle going.

You see it in higher education.  You see it in religious life.  You see it in the way we parent.  This can be frightening, enlightening and freeing, all at the same time -- we don't have quite as much ingenuity as we think we do.  What goes around, comes around....

Every generation blames the one before....

-- Mike & the Mechanics

Staggering...either way

Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Christmas Season

The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become the more we realize that everything in life is a gift.

-- Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel"

Cyber Monday

Ads have a tendency to promote narcissism while portraying our lives as dull and ordinary. They trade on natural desires but in a way that heightens our dissatisfaction and creates unrealistic expectations.

-- Jean Kibbourne, media critic

Adversity

If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?

-- Thomas à Kempis

Dare I pray for this kind of friendship? My spirit is willing, but....  Fortunately, he is a far better friend to me than I to him.  He will take me where I need to go, through adversity or not.

Thanksgiving - Honesty and Hope

There is something about the sweep of things, if we're honest...that illuminates day-to-day goings-on. 

It also takes an honesty about the day-to-day, lest the 'overview' of things become the Christmas newsletter where only the good things of life are mentioned...to leave an impression about something that isn't really true...like how well our lives are going.

Looking back, at times like Thanksgiving, gives us the opportunity to be honest about what isn't yet, about our need, about our longings for more.  It is also reminds us about what is true...that God is calling us, that God is with us, that God is guiding us...and, therefore, that we have hope in Him in the day-to-day of our lives.

It's a good circle.

Joy in giving

There is a surprising joy in giving to others.

We Are All Pilgrims

The Pilgrims made 7 times more graves than huts.  It might be said that no Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

All of us at one point or another don't realize that it is through suffering that we become thankful, for what we do have, for what we have been given.  No one expects this truth on the front side, but on the back side, those who have experienced it, recognize the truth of it.  How ironic, then, that we so vigorously avoid what we fear will take our lives, while all the while it is the very means through which life is given to us.

I must say that I am thankful for pilgrim-suffering (whatever the form may be) in my life.

Education & Creativity

I think it comes down to money (which is really a question of values). People would say that economies of scale of manufacturing have had to be put in place in education, in order to afford it...thus largely the 'system' we have today. That sounds OK on the surface, but when you consider the amount of other money being spent now on other things by school systems, parents, etc. that are really only somewhat connected to education (sports might be a good example), it makes you wonder whether the argument of not enough money really holds water. It seems more like a matter of priorities, of cultural values, of how we like to spend money...for the enjoyment / experience we connect with it. I wonder if the current system can be broken...without being forced to do so by some outside factor. Ironically, that could be economics after all.

Thanks for sending, Cliff!

Us

My children, my grandfather said, you'll never see anything worse than yourselves.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

...seems hard to believe, doesn't it? We're so used to it, we don't see ourselves clearly.

What Is vs What Ought

We must lay before Him what is in us not what ought to be in us.

-- C.S. Lewis

Because

Many people believe in God because of what they think He will do for them....

I didn't know it, but I have been one of those people at times in my life, too.  It's when God doesn't seem to work with the plan we've ended up for Him that things get interesting.

Nature's Christmas Lights

Wow!  What an awesome morning to be alive.

Perhaps due to an extra hour of sleep or perhaps due to a call I couldn't resist, I was able to enjoy a run in the woods this morning.  What a time!  What startling beauty.  The receding green has now almost completely given way to the emergent color falling everywhere.  The paths of hardened dirt are softened with a carpet of color padding every step.  You can see more, with less leaves at eye level and above, and the texture of all that is alive in the woods makes quite a chorus of joy to the eye.  A deer bolted across the stream right in front of me.  And around the next bend, one of my favorite 100-yard stretches of path was lit up this time with what seemed like the Christmas lights of nature -- a whole row of straggly and overgrown fire bushes reaching for the forest sky blazed red with the morning sunlight streaming through them just above my head.  It was one of the more beautiful sights of the morning...one that nature had organized and that quite out-shines the man-made versions we'll be seeing a lot of in a month or two.  I marveled as the phrase 'Repeat the Sounding Joy!' echoed from my head towards my throat. 

Today is one day I'm thrilled to be alive.  What a gift.

Do People Change?

Do you think people change?

I'd like to explore this question in subsequent posts.  I'd enjoy your thoughts / comments, too.

Breathe a little more deeply

I don’t know about you, but in this part of the world when the leaves take the long dive, and the nights grow longer, and a chill comes into the ground beneath our feet, music starts to sound different. And feels really, really good. And if that music is happening on a warmly lit stage in front of a room full of people who came in out of the cold and have braided the songs into the soulful stories they are writing with their lives, it can positively help one breathe a little more deeply. See this imperfect, beautiful world with new eyes.

-- OtR

‘But the poet says we must praise the mutilated world, we’re all workin’ the graveyard shift: we might as well sing along. All my favorite people are broken.’

...do yourself a favor and see these beautifully talented and humble people this year. You won't regret it. You will get your breath back eventually....

Purses - Reflections

I've been reflecting a bit on Hugo's thought (see post below).  At first blush, it is easy to disagree...we need money.  We have more fun when there is money.  Our futures are more secure when we have money.  ...or so goes common legend.  And yet, it seems undeniable that something else goes on when we accumulate 'money in the purse'.  Something shifts.  A grip tightens.  The need to protect it goes up.  Time shortens.  ...and we miss out on something very significant. While we gain certain things, others begin to pass us by. In retrospect, I would admit that I've been more alive, more open, more aware of others and the goings-on inside myself, more human, more dependent...during the times when I didn't have money.

But I suspect Hugo is really on to something more than simply the bane of mammon.  Perhaps he is speaking as much about the virtue of emptying oneself, the blessing of giving ourselves to others, whatever the currency might be.  Does he know about the value of being empty, of being emptied, of allowing God to fill us...rather than doing it for ourselves? I'm guessing he's pointing to a great surprise awaiting all of us through our willingness to be emptied for the sake of someone else...whether monetarily or otherwise.

Them or Us

...our sense of material entitlement has had a profound impact on the financial choices of American families.

Thanks to Jim for sending this my way.  While it's easy to say it's 'them', perhaps it's really 'us'.

Carpet of Color

Purses

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.

-- Victor Hugo

David's People Dancing?

I found this leaf today and became a bit enthralled by it...the symmetry, the intensity, the verigation of color.  I held it up against the sky for this pic.  I stared at it for quite a while.  Where does such beauty come from?

...and then I became a bit more mesmerized.  Is that one of David's people dancing in the dark spot at the right? ...click pic to see close up.

Confession

A friend asked me how I landed on my recent thinking about confession.  Here was my response.  I want to remember it:

First of all, I was struck when you confessed a while back.  I sensed a sincerity, a strength, and a humility as you did it.  It left an impression on me.  Since that time, I've thought often about why that happens so little, so infrequently.  And, this became some of the genesis of thinking for me about who we truly are, which returned me to Nouwen's thoughts.  Who are we really?  And, then, why we don't act like it?  Tom reminded us (confessed) of the truth of our more common commitments, which I translated into our individual and shared commitment to filter what is revealed about ourselves. Hiding significant parts of ourselves from view, from others, from ourselves.  And, so the question emerged, why?  Why do we live out of something other than we are?  Especially when at the right moment, none of us really wants to? 

At this point, I wanted to take this further, to push a little harder on it, by saying that we don't confess very much.  But then your image came to mind and I realized that we do confess.  You did.  I did a bit more...acknowledging what is true about me because you acknowledged your truth.  And, so the idea of invitation introduced itself to this concept and overtook the spirit of chastisement I was headed towards about myself and others.  We are simply invited to confess...and we do well to take up the invitation.  So you were on my mind as I prepared and it become more clear what you did as I spoke -- both intended and spontaneous.

This is the great surprise that we aren't yet familiar with...such things are a joy, powerful, and freeing rather than the version of whatever holds us back from 'jumping from the precipice'. 

So I thank you, for giving me the permission to explore this within myself these last few weeks...because of your confession.

By the way, the last lines of the Lord's Prayer are confession, too:

"For your is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever."

When we acknowledge what is true, we confess just as much as we do when we acknowledge our sins.

Thanks for asking....

Confession

So, a response to a question posed in a recent post.  The question was, "What is hiding's opposite?"

Of course, there is not just one answer.  Like most things, it's not just a "for this, do that" proposition.  It's not a formula per se.  But, all caveats aside, I'm thinking that the opposite of a life committed to self-protection through hiding is contrasted by a life that God seems to recommend to His people -- that is, a life of confession. 

Confession is a term that makes us rather quickly feel something we don't like.  We don't like the idea, as least at first blush.  Perhaps it is what we believe makes confession necessary that we don't like to acknowledge -- that we've done something wrong and need to apologize for it.  This, of course, means that we have to admit it.  We have to admit it to ourselves and we have to admit to someone else.  This is against the notion of keeping others away from the parts of us that aren't nice, tidy, and clean.  Thus the reason we work as hard as we do to filter ourselves in front of others, so that are darker sides are not seen. 

But the problem is that we forfeit something in this commitment to protect ourselves.  We forfeit the opportunity to be known, to be embraced, to discover a level of acceptance that we're afraid we won't get, to live freely...faults and all...with those around us.

God recommends confession throughout the Scriptures, from the design of how to handle things when we do sin against someone, to the practice of asking God to reveal to us where we hurt Him and others, all the way through to fighting the good fight of faith -- described as the 'good confession' -- by the way we live our lives.

Confession really is quite simple.  It is acknowledging what is true.  Both the good and the bad.  It is acknowledging our need.  It is recognizing our dependence on something besides ourselves for our well-being, our dependence on God.  2 chronicles 7 says that confession will lead to healing.  1 John 1 says that confession leads to cleansing, to being pure.  Psalm 51 says it will lead us to health and strength, even joy.

So whether specifically or through our general style of life, God recommends the less-worn path of confession, particularly in constrast to the well-worn path of hiding ourselves.  Perhaps this is why Jesus simply recommended this prayer to be on our lips on a regular basis:

Our father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done.
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts
As we have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever.

This is confession; it is acknowledging who is in charge and aligning ourselves with the implications thereof.  I think it is the opposite of hiding.

Wiser

Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers!
 
-- William Culbertson