The burning cauldron of a sunken city buried thousands of God’s precious people in a furnace of chaos, terror and despair. Despairing days of hunger and thirst overtook eyeless nights of screaming victims. The world watched and wondered why have these people been forgotten?
As the city descended into darkness, pronouncements of judgment were inevitable. The media condemned the looters, the mayor condemned the government, and the preachers condemned the hedonism. As early as last Wednesday, I began to hear comparisons of this disaster with the judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah.
I am hesitant to make any pronouncements or proclamations. The ways and wisdom of God are higher than the ways and wisdom of man. I cannot begin to suggest that I know why so many people suffered and so many people died. I can only grieve with those who grieve.
And as I grieve, I cannot help but see the images of screaming mothers and dying grandmothers. Those images do bring to mind Sodom. The prophet Ezekiel announces that one of the reasons that led to Sodom’s downfall was their absolute failure to care for the poor: “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit” (Ezekiel 16:49-50).
The world gasped as an American city appeared to be reduced to third world disaster. Unfortunately, Katrina didn’t create a deplorable situation, it revealed it. Last week, the world saw a different image of America. One that is more real than the gods we worship on the red carpet.
We saw a part of the country that long before Katrina appeared, was ravaged by poverty. The statistics are alarming: New Orleans ranks in top 20 of America’s poorest cities. Louisiana and Mississippi are two of the poorest states in America. According to the Corporate Crime Reporter, Mississippi and Louisiana are two of the most corrupt states in America.
If anything, Katrina put a magnifying glass on poverty in America. After watching the stunning losses in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, I decided to spend a little time looking up poverty in America. It is not a pretty picture. According the US Census, poverty is increasing in America, and income is stagnant, meaning many people are slipping to the working poor.
12.7 percent of Americans live below the poverty level. A study by the United States Conference of Mayors in 2004, indicated that requests for emergency good assistance increased by an average of 14 percent during the year. And 20 percent (on average) of requests for emergency food assistance go unmet.
According to America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest network of food banks, 23.3 million people turned to the agencies they serve in 2001, an increase of over 2 million since 1997. Forty percent were from working families.
While millions are hungry in our own nation, most of us waste at least $590 in food per year. According the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, household food waste adds up to 43 million dollars. And America’s Second Harvest suggests that over 41 billion pounds of food were wasted last year.
As I read these statistics and think about those images last week, I cannot help but think of the prophets of Israel. They relentlessly called for justice and consideration of the poor. We may believe in the Bible and we may even “prophesy” to one another, but if we fail to care for the weakest members of our culture, we live under indictment.
Currently, there is a flurry of activity relating the to evacuees from Katrina. And I hope and pray that each of us will do our part to care for the suffering refugees. In the coming months and year, many people suffering from this devastation will rebuild their lives. But the hurting and the hungry will still be here. The cameras won’t be focused on them, but they will still suffer.
If we truly are a prophetic people, I pray we will never forget our obligation to care for the weakest among us. I’m not asking for any money, and I am not advocating any agencies, I am asking you to consider what is required of you? We cannot continue to collect and amass luxuries without end while ignoring the hurting in our own nation as well as around the world.
If anyone is interested, here are a few scriptures concerning our obligation to the poor.
Ezekiel 22:28-31
29 The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31 Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads," says the Lord GOD.
NKJV
Isaiah 3:14-15
14 The LORD will enter into judgment
With the elders of His people
And His princes:
"For you have eaten up the vineyard;
The plunder of the poor is in your houses.
15 What do you mean by crushing My people
And grinding the faces of the poor ?"
NKJV
Isaiah 10:1-3
"Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees,
Who write misfortune,
Which they have prescribed
2 To rob the needy of justice,
And to take what is right from the poor of My people,
That widows may be their prey,
And that they may rob the fatherless.
3 What will you do in the day of punishment,
And in the desolation which will come from afar?
To whom will you flee for help?
And where will you leave your glory?
NKJV
Isaiah 14:32
32 What will they answer the messengers of the nation?
That the LORD has founded Zion,
And the poor of His people shall take refuge in it.
NKJV
Isaiah 41:17
17 "The poor and needy seek water, but there is none,
Their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the LORD, will hear them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
NKJV
Ezekiel 18:12-13
12 If he has oppressed the poor and needy,
Robbed by violence,
Not restored the pledge,
Lifted his eyes to the idols,
Or committed abomination;
13 If he has exacted usury
Or taken increase —
Shall he then live?
He shall not live!
If he has done any of these abominations,
He shall surely die;
His blood shall be upon him.
NKJV
Ezekiel 22:29-31
29 The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31 Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads," says the Lord GOD.
NKJV
Matthew 19:21
21 Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor , and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
NKJV
Luke 14:12-14
"When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor , the maimed, the lame, the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just."
NKJV
Galatians 2:10
10 They desired only that we should remember the poor , the very thing which I also was eager to do.
NKJV
James 2:5-7
5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
NKJV
Monday, September 05, 2005
Friday, August 12, 2005
In Cold Blood
When a particularly violent crime occurs and it seems as though the perpetrator has no remorse, we may say that this happened "in cold blood."
This is another way of explaining what I've been trying to communicate about our nonstop bombardment of information and sensuous experiences. From the web to the television to billboards to advertising (anywhere and everywhere) to newspaper headlines, we are assaulted on a daily basis with more information than we can fully process. So what happens? We become indifferent.
In fact, our school systems are set up to break the subjectivity out of the subject. So all of our learning is third person--casual observer. From kindergarten, we learn to be good materialist scientists: observing the world from a cold state of indifference.
How many people actually grieve over the deaths in Iraq? How many wept with those who lost their retirements during the Enron crisis? We know a little about a lot of people's business but along the way we forget how to feel.
As James Houston once said, "We know more than we can love."
Or as Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (ERH) said, "People who know too much, without sympathy and without antipathy are the curse of the earth today. They know more than they should know, and that they can know, and that they may know."
We watch life as non-participants. After I was writing the other day, I was listening to a lecture that ERH gave in 1967, and he said what I was aching about, but he says it in a much more articulate manner. He suggested we live in a time when people are not encouraged to identify with what they learn. So we stand on the outside looking in--instead of entering into the struggle of history. Listen to a few of his thoughts:
"What you know about world history is not yours unless you appropriate it, unless you say on day, "That's really me. I would have done the same." ..Without identity, no history. And the great illness of all the professors . your examinations on history is that they allow you to write papers without your participation. You aren't asked to identify yourself with this. What's this? Do we sit in judgment while the Trojans had to be destroyed by the Greeks? Only if you weep for Hector, or if you participate in the rape of Helena. Otherwise, it's not your business to know it at all. And that's why Homer had to write the story in such a way that you may weep. Otherwise, if you read it, you do harm to your soul. And you all do harm to your soul 10 times a day...And that's why you at the end become totally indifferent people."
"It's very serious. You see, the ordinary man at the filling station is much less in danger of his soul today than you are. You are allowed to read too much, to know too many things, and not to know them at all. And that is no use. It spoils you; it ruins you. How can you educate a child, if the child knows that have 90 percent of your knowledge in indifference? In cold blood."
"...And they speak of urbanization and of rubble heaps, you see, in the cities. But it's not the visible rubbish heaps. It's the invisible rubbish heaps in your brain, in your skulls that is so terrifying. If you listen and know a thousand more things than you can take sides, for or against. That is very difficult to avoid, I know."
He goes on to speak of memory. We need memory. We need to know where we came from and who we are. We need to be able to say our name, knowing our identity. Not what I do for a living: my name, my history, my family, my connection to other humans. Otherwise, we grow indifferent. We think nothing of the deaths from the nightly news or the nightly feast of murders on various television programs or movies.
In one sense, life is about taking our stand in relationships. Bearing the joy and sorrow of others. Entering into the pains and trial of history. Bearing the cross. I don't write these thoughts to point the finger at others: only at myself.
For the last 15 years, I've been trying to learn to live and act more intentionally, more relationally. And yet, I am ever aware of my shortfalls and the ways in which I succumb to the barrage of banality.
This is another way of explaining what I've been trying to communicate about our nonstop bombardment of information and sensuous experiences. From the web to the television to billboards to advertising (anywhere and everywhere) to newspaper headlines, we are assaulted on a daily basis with more information than we can fully process. So what happens? We become indifferent.
In fact, our school systems are set up to break the subjectivity out of the subject. So all of our learning is third person--casual observer. From kindergarten, we learn to be good materialist scientists: observing the world from a cold state of indifference.
How many people actually grieve over the deaths in Iraq? How many wept with those who lost their retirements during the Enron crisis? We know a little about a lot of people's business but along the way we forget how to feel.
As James Houston once said, "We know more than we can love."
Or as Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (ERH) said, "People who know too much, without sympathy and without antipathy are the curse of the earth today. They know more than they should know, and that they can know, and that they may know."
We watch life as non-participants. After I was writing the other day, I was listening to a lecture that ERH gave in 1967, and he said what I was aching about, but he says it in a much more articulate manner. He suggested we live in a time when people are not encouraged to identify with what they learn. So we stand on the outside looking in--instead of entering into the struggle of history. Listen to a few of his thoughts:
"What you know about world history is not yours unless you appropriate it, unless you say on day, "That's really me. I would have done the same." ..Without identity, no history. And the great illness of all the professors . your examinations on history is that they allow you to write papers without your participation. You aren't asked to identify yourself with this. What's this? Do we sit in judgment while the Trojans had to be destroyed by the Greeks? Only if you weep for Hector, or if you participate in the rape of Helena. Otherwise, it's not your business to know it at all. And that's why Homer had to write the story in such a way that you may weep. Otherwise, if you read it, you do harm to your soul. And you all do harm to your soul 10 times a day...And that's why you at the end become totally indifferent people."
"It's very serious. You see, the ordinary man at the filling station is much less in danger of his soul today than you are. You are allowed to read too much, to know too many things, and not to know them at all. And that is no use. It spoils you; it ruins you. How can you educate a child, if the child knows that have 90 percent of your knowledge in indifference? In cold blood."
"...And they speak of urbanization and of rubble heaps, you see, in the cities. But it's not the visible rubbish heaps. It's the invisible rubbish heaps in your brain, in your skulls that is so terrifying. If you listen and know a thousand more things than you can take sides, for or against. That is very difficult to avoid, I know."
He goes on to speak of memory. We need memory. We need to know where we came from and who we are. We need to be able to say our name, knowing our identity. Not what I do for a living: my name, my history, my family, my connection to other humans. Otherwise, we grow indifferent. We think nothing of the deaths from the nightly news or the nightly feast of murders on various television programs or movies.
In one sense, life is about taking our stand in relationships. Bearing the joy and sorrow of others. Entering into the pains and trial of history. Bearing the cross. I don't write these thoughts to point the finger at others: only at myself.
For the last 15 years, I've been trying to learn to live and act more intentionally, more relationally. And yet, I am ever aware of my shortfalls and the ways in which I succumb to the barrage of banality.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Social Gatekeepers
The modern world was founded with the notion of affirming the individual—it has succeeded in creating a homogenous society that reproduces itself around the world and gradually eliminates the individual. Every country has a McDonalds and every child wants to go to Disney World.
At least that is the way is was supposed to work. But suddenly, everyone didn’t want to be the same. In fact, some people were mad that “dead white males” had created the world we live in. And so they opened their mouths and started talking. Everyone at once: feminists, indigenous people groups, homosexuals, heterosexuals, conservatives, liberals, various races. Actually we’re not one at all, but multiple tribes with multiple ways of seeing the world. And if the truth be confessed, we’re all in tribes of one.
As Plato says somewhere (?), each of us thinks we are god. This is the curse/blessing of particularity. RD Laing realized this when he said that “I can experience my experience, and you can experience your experience, but I cannot experience your experience.” Or as one of my college professors once said, “We’ve gone to the moon but I would suggest that the distance from one human heart to another is even greater.”
The Social Gatekeepers I mentioned before, helped hold some kind of peace “however tenuous” between these tribes. If I accept the idea that I must become my own gatekeeper without qualification, I am accepting the possibility that each of us may move farther and farther apart as we choose to view reality through our own filters without a common intervening force. That what’s a social gatekeeper is. It is a common intervening force built on a framework that the participants accept as valid.
Alexis de Toqueville was fascinated by what he saw in America, but suggested experiment in individualism would only work as long as we had strong commitments to family, community and government. These three realms prevented democracy from descending into an abyss of unrestrained individualism. When I use the term social gatekeepers, I am looking at the forces that help keep us connected by maintaining or reinforcing some kind of common language.
This tenous relationship between the one and the many has never been perfect and the modern world erred both ways. So what does the future hold? It will require us struggling with some difficult questions (which many have been wrestling with since the dawn of man). Some of the questions include: What is knowledge? Or How do we know what we know? While there were several minor camps, the modern world had two major camps: one looked at rational thought is the way we know and the other suggested that what we know is only as reliable as what we can see, feel, hear or touch. These two frameworks battled and worked together to help us understand knowledge.
People like Bernard Lonergan struggled with understanding this question in new ways.
Other questions that come to mind is “What is a person?” “What does it mean to be a human person?” This leads to questions about communication, technology, society, destiny, etc.
These types of questions, might help us to begin thinking about How Should We Then Live?(a question that Francis Schaeffer faced and invited us to join him).
When I say that I am a Trinitarian Christian, I am saying I belief that the source of all things is essentially relational—thus relationality is both our origin and our destiny. Working this out in the way I act and think and make decisions is taking a lifetime of shaping and struggle. When I approach these questions of knowing and being, of communicating and creating, I am looking at them through a lens or a presupposition that the one and the many find a common, if not paradoxical, relationship in the mystery of the Trinity (three in one).
Not everyone shares this presupposition, but I believe each of us come to the table with certain presupposition (certain ideas that we build our other ideas upon). It might be worth thinking about our presuppositions and then trying to think and talk more about knowledge, the meaning of person and these others ideas that will shape the larger context of our relationships in society.
At least that is the way is was supposed to work. But suddenly, everyone didn’t want to be the same. In fact, some people were mad that “dead white males” had created the world we live in. And so they opened their mouths and started talking. Everyone at once: feminists, indigenous people groups, homosexuals, heterosexuals, conservatives, liberals, various races. Actually we’re not one at all, but multiple tribes with multiple ways of seeing the world. And if the truth be confessed, we’re all in tribes of one.
As Plato says somewhere (?), each of us thinks we are god. This is the curse/blessing of particularity. RD Laing realized this when he said that “I can experience my experience, and you can experience your experience, but I cannot experience your experience.” Or as one of my college professors once said, “We’ve gone to the moon but I would suggest that the distance from one human heart to another is even greater.”
The Social Gatekeepers I mentioned before, helped hold some kind of peace “however tenuous” between these tribes. If I accept the idea that I must become my own gatekeeper without qualification, I am accepting the possibility that each of us may move farther and farther apart as we choose to view reality through our own filters without a common intervening force. That what’s a social gatekeeper is. It is a common intervening force built on a framework that the participants accept as valid.
Alexis de Toqueville was fascinated by what he saw in America, but suggested experiment in individualism would only work as long as we had strong commitments to family, community and government. These three realms prevented democracy from descending into an abyss of unrestrained individualism. When I use the term social gatekeepers, I am looking at the forces that help keep us connected by maintaining or reinforcing some kind of common language.
This tenous relationship between the one and the many has never been perfect and the modern world erred both ways. So what does the future hold? It will require us struggling with some difficult questions (which many have been wrestling with since the dawn of man). Some of the questions include: What is knowledge? Or How do we know what we know? While there were several minor camps, the modern world had two major camps: one looked at rational thought is the way we know and the other suggested that what we know is only as reliable as what we can see, feel, hear or touch. These two frameworks battled and worked together to help us understand knowledge.
People like Bernard Lonergan struggled with understanding this question in new ways.
Other questions that come to mind is “What is a person?” “What does it mean to be a human person?” This leads to questions about communication, technology, society, destiny, etc.
These types of questions, might help us to begin thinking about How Should We Then Live?(a question that Francis Schaeffer faced and invited us to join him).
When I say that I am a Trinitarian Christian, I am saying I belief that the source of all things is essentially relational—thus relationality is both our origin and our destiny. Working this out in the way I act and think and make decisions is taking a lifetime of shaping and struggle. When I approach these questions of knowing and being, of communicating and creating, I am looking at them through a lens or a presupposition that the one and the many find a common, if not paradoxical, relationship in the mystery of the Trinity (three in one).
Not everyone shares this presupposition, but I believe each of us come to the table with certain presupposition (certain ideas that we build our other ideas upon). It might be worth thinking about our presuppositions and then trying to think and talk more about knowledge, the meaning of person and these others ideas that will shape the larger context of our relationships in society.
Intention
After awaking from a grog and posting earlier this week, I received a variety of responses (both online and offline). One person thought I might be suffering depression, while another suggested canceling satellite could only be a sign of insanity. And oddly, enough many identify with my rambling. Several people suggested that we need to become our own gatekeepers in this less than brave new world. (See comments and ecommunity)
I agree that personal passivity can be a perilous position in this postmodern milieu. We must cultivate thoughtfulness in our actions and relational patterns. Not thoughtfulness as in kindness but thoughtfulness as in living by intention instead of on autopilot. While we may have difficulty verbalizing our value system, it influences our decisions nonetheless.
So it might be helpful to think about what we value and how these values do or not shape our actions. Is our inner world congruent with our outer world? For instance, I may think that I really value relationships and community, but do I act in ways that encourage or discourage community.
When we live passively, there is a tendency to drift toward incongruity. I may complain about lack of time while wasting precious time on mind-numbing activities. I may complain about financial pressures and at the same time accrue more debt on a daily basis by purchasing needless luxuries on credit. These personal incongruities cause stress among other things.
Living intentionally is not as easy as it sounds. Over 10 years ago, I studied community at graduate school and professed my belief that forming healthy, long-lasting relationships is fundamental to being human. I confess that after 10 years of seeking to live more intentionally, I am only beginning to realize the weight of such a commitment.
So the first challenge/question we face is learning to live intentionally in a culture that may view this at times as subversiveness. And I ‘m not talking about some communist regime. For example, anyone who chooses to walk away from the consumerist calling of the average American may considered strange at best and possibly dangerous (cultish) at worst.
One prime example of this might be living in such a way that you believe human life really is valuable—or embracing a culture of life as the late John Paul II would say. The ramifications of such a position will often turn both liberals and conservatives against you.
There is another challenge. In addition to becoming our own gatekeeper (learning to live more by intention and less by drifting), we also face the challenge of living in society. I, the one, live with other people, the many. The challenge of the one and the many has been a question that cultures throughout history have struggled to balance. This is the challenge of balancing universality and particularity. Are we all one as some would imagine? And if not, what keeps us from falling apart into absolute chaos?
But more on that later.
I agree that personal passivity can be a perilous position in this postmodern milieu. We must cultivate thoughtfulness in our actions and relational patterns. Not thoughtfulness as in kindness but thoughtfulness as in living by intention instead of on autopilot. While we may have difficulty verbalizing our value system, it influences our decisions nonetheless.
So it might be helpful to think about what we value and how these values do or not shape our actions. Is our inner world congruent with our outer world? For instance, I may think that I really value relationships and community, but do I act in ways that encourage or discourage community.
When we live passively, there is a tendency to drift toward incongruity. I may complain about lack of time while wasting precious time on mind-numbing activities. I may complain about financial pressures and at the same time accrue more debt on a daily basis by purchasing needless luxuries on credit. These personal incongruities cause stress among other things.
Living intentionally is not as easy as it sounds. Over 10 years ago, I studied community at graduate school and professed my belief that forming healthy, long-lasting relationships is fundamental to being human. I confess that after 10 years of seeking to live more intentionally, I am only beginning to realize the weight of such a commitment.
So the first challenge/question we face is learning to live intentionally in a culture that may view this at times as subversiveness. And I ‘m not talking about some communist regime. For example, anyone who chooses to walk away from the consumerist calling of the average American may considered strange at best and possibly dangerous (cultish) at worst.
One prime example of this might be living in such a way that you believe human life really is valuable—or embracing a culture of life as the late John Paul II would say. The ramifications of such a position will often turn both liberals and conservatives against you.
There is another challenge. In addition to becoming our own gatekeeper (learning to live more by intention and less by drifting), we also face the challenge of living in society. I, the one, live with other people, the many. The challenge of the one and the many has been a question that cultures throughout history have struggled to balance. This is the challenge of balancing universality and particularity. Are we all one as some would imagine? And if not, what keeps us from falling apart into absolute chaos?
But more on that later.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Too much information - Warning Long Post
I canceled my satellite television. Somehow the endless choices of hundreds of programming choices no longer seemed appealing. And at times, I have even thought about canceling my Internet. I know, blasphemy. Sure I love meeting people from around the globe and I’ve enjoyed tuning into multiple perspectives, and who can resist the latest Google gadget? Yet, most of the time, this endless stream of information seems like a distraction, like a substitute for living.
I hesitate to enter another blog, filling the web world with yet another blast of 0s and 1s translated into text, images and words for your viewing pleasure. When I first heard about the Internet in the early 90s, I wondered if it would be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m still wondering.
And yet, it’s here. I’m here. And I’m still writing.
Last July, in my first blog, I raised questions about the current state of the world. I’m still thinking about those questions. For the next few minutes, I am going to describe my intuitive of sense of the world. I will avoid using references (although I most certainly have been impacted by other thinkers). I just need to write out what I’ve been thinking. You’re welcome to join me or just as welcome to tune me out because you’ve probably got better things to do. (Like checking your RSS aggregator.)
Information drowns us. Bits of data pelt our brains and ears and eyes like the continuous drip of some ancient water torture. Over time our senses deaden and we lose all ability to distinguish between drips. One drip seems much like the other drip. Just a repetitive droning: on and on and on and on and on and on.
The human body receives far more information than it can process. So it filters. It distinguishes sensations we need to know from sensations we can forget about. Otherwise we might go insane: and some people do. Some people don’t have effective filters: they may hear too many sounds, feel too many sensations, see too many things. Their mind tries to process all those bits and soon they are confused and tormented. Some persons weave all this information into strange theories of world conspiracy while others become prophets or artists.
Thank God for those filters. They help us determine the bits of information we absolutely need and the ones we can forget about.
A group of humans may begin to develop similar habits. Each human in a group is contributing information to the group. As the group grows, so does the information. At some point, there is simply too much information for everyone to process and to remain in the group: at this point some type of filter emerges to help manage the flow of information.
These filters are also known as gatekeepers. Gatekeepers manage the flow as well as the type of information entering the flow. Gatekeepers can help create continuity within the group. In fact, when gatekeepers are over-active or when we feel they use their power to oppress us, we critique the gatekeepers. We may blame our distorted view of the world on their influence and at times we may be right.
As the medieval world transitioned into a modern world, gatekeepers adapted to the growing modern culture. These gatekeepers managed the flow and type of information to the persons throughout the society. There were still a variety of groups of people but most managed to function together in a common web through the mediation of various gatekeepers who helped keep some sense of continuity in the world. (But this was not without many bloody fights!)
The first gatekeepers a person meets is normally the mother and father. They manage the flow of information to the child and provide an interpretive lens. After the family, we find gatekeepers in the local community and the church: both of which reinforce the interpretive lens and provide filters. The family, community and church are like gatekeepers within a tribe. They connect us to our roots.
But above these gatekeepers are meta-gatekeepers who control information to the tribes and help keep all the tribes in some continuity. These may include government, school systems, and press/mass media. All of these adapted and played a specific role within the modern world. Most of the time there was enough continuity between the meta-gatekeepers and the local tribes, to maintain some type of common language—even when people may have radically differing perspectives.
But not everything would or could last forever. By the end of the 19th century, a few thinkers had already begun to see past the gatekeepers. People like Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche saw cracks in the foundation of the modern world.
For over 100 hundred years, the tiny cracks gradually spread through the fabric of modern societies, and by the mid twentieth century, some people already began talking about a post-modern world. Gradually the gatekeepers lost their power. It is difficult for me to pinpoint, but I think the Watergate controversy of the 70s marked a fundamental shift for the government as gatekeeper.
Public trust in the government sank to an all time low and politicians retreated more and more into tribal positions finding it harder and harder to mediate one common vision of the modern world. Their language became so tribe bound that by the mid 90s, we could no longer even agree on the meaning of what “is” is.
Several big blows to the media as gatekeeper came with the 2004 election as bloggers consistently challenged their right and ability to effectively serve as gatekeepers. By the end of the 2004 election cycle, some people were tempted to find out their news only from members of their tribe.
I think the school system is still transitioning but it will inevitably lose its status as a modernist gatekeeper. Already non-accredited informal schools are rapidly multiplying throughout the nation. Much like bloggers, these non-traditional schools are diversifying the academic content and breaking the stronghold of the traditional gatekeepers.
In a way, all this seems like a good thing. No control. No one telling me how to think. Yet, in the absence of these gatekeepers, we lose all filters. We are bombarded with information. So much information confronts us from so many different angles, we lose our ability to distinguish good information from bad information. Thus all is information is suspect.
In such an overflow, words lose their meaning. Poetry, the art which guards our words, is forgotten. No one has time to read or think about poetry. Instead, we bathe in an a non-stop onslaught of words. From the moment we awake to the moment we fall asleep, we are bombarded with information bits. Everyone has Attention Deficit Disorder: and everyone laughs about it. Everyone is becoming psychotic.
The stress of this post-modern age will only grow as the chaos intensifies. And it will continue to intensify: for a season. The war on terror is just one sign of modern world in chaos. There are many more wars going on. Our talk shows and our governments seem like mini war zones at times with persons hurling invectives upon one another like hand grenades.
They cannot debate in any classical sense because they cannot agree on the meaning of their words, let alone what information is important and how should it be understood. All they can do is engage in verbal duels. The loudest, crassest voices often shouts down the weaker voice.
In this world of chaos, gatekeepers at every level struggle to understand how to act and how to respond. Take churches for example. Some turn to economics, believing the market drives everything. If I find my authority in the market, then I will develop my systems around the fickleness of an ever-changing market. Some churches for example, change their worship styles and preaching styles and architecture to fit the demands of today’s market. Of course, that market may change tomorrow.
Others look to tradition as a source of authority: either they grow stiffer in some fundamentalist expressions of their faith or they embrace ancient forms and seek to breathe new life in them today.
This chaos simply cannot go on forever. As a Trinitarian Christian, I anticipate the rebirth of all things even now. I look forward with hope for we are truly moving toward the hope of God fully revealed to man.
Thus chaos will not overrun the earth. Eventually, new gatekeepers will emerge (or the old gatekeepers will re-emerge with newly defined filtering systems). At some point, our desire for continuity will overcome the extreme neo-tribalism period we are entering, and we’ll find new ways to connect our various tribes in some form of common life. Either we’ll find a way or a greater power will impose it and the people will accept it. This new world will probably mold some aspects of modernism, pre-modernism and possibly other newer perspectives into a way of seeing that provides some level of continuity for the multiple tribes.
But for now, we live in a growing cacophony of data. The question for me is, “How do I live in this increasing chaos, as a relational person that beholds a new heaven and new earth and lives toward the reality of that kingdom even now?” I don’t always know.
Part of it may have to with willingly denying myself some of the all-you-can-consume smorgasbord of data streaming at me from all directions. So I canceled my satellite television. What’s next? I don’t know, but I think it has something to with embracing the cross, exposing my weaknesses, and seeking to live in the reality of kingdom rooted in the relational love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I hesitate to enter another blog, filling the web world with yet another blast of 0s and 1s translated into text, images and words for your viewing pleasure. When I first heard about the Internet in the early 90s, I wondered if it would be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m still wondering.
And yet, it’s here. I’m here. And I’m still writing.
Last July, in my first blog, I raised questions about the current state of the world. I’m still thinking about those questions. For the next few minutes, I am going to describe my intuitive of sense of the world. I will avoid using references (although I most certainly have been impacted by other thinkers). I just need to write out what I’ve been thinking. You’re welcome to join me or just as welcome to tune me out because you’ve probably got better things to do. (Like checking your RSS aggregator.)
Information drowns us. Bits of data pelt our brains and ears and eyes like the continuous drip of some ancient water torture. Over time our senses deaden and we lose all ability to distinguish between drips. One drip seems much like the other drip. Just a repetitive droning: on and on and on and on and on and on.
The human body receives far more information than it can process. So it filters. It distinguishes sensations we need to know from sensations we can forget about. Otherwise we might go insane: and some people do. Some people don’t have effective filters: they may hear too many sounds, feel too many sensations, see too many things. Their mind tries to process all those bits and soon they are confused and tormented. Some persons weave all this information into strange theories of world conspiracy while others become prophets or artists.
Thank God for those filters. They help us determine the bits of information we absolutely need and the ones we can forget about.
A group of humans may begin to develop similar habits. Each human in a group is contributing information to the group. As the group grows, so does the information. At some point, there is simply too much information for everyone to process and to remain in the group: at this point some type of filter emerges to help manage the flow of information.
These filters are also known as gatekeepers. Gatekeepers manage the flow as well as the type of information entering the flow. Gatekeepers can help create continuity within the group. In fact, when gatekeepers are over-active or when we feel they use their power to oppress us, we critique the gatekeepers. We may blame our distorted view of the world on their influence and at times we may be right.
As the medieval world transitioned into a modern world, gatekeepers adapted to the growing modern culture. These gatekeepers managed the flow and type of information to the persons throughout the society. There were still a variety of groups of people but most managed to function together in a common web through the mediation of various gatekeepers who helped keep some sense of continuity in the world. (But this was not without many bloody fights!)
The first gatekeepers a person meets is normally the mother and father. They manage the flow of information to the child and provide an interpretive lens. After the family, we find gatekeepers in the local community and the church: both of which reinforce the interpretive lens and provide filters. The family, community and church are like gatekeepers within a tribe. They connect us to our roots.
But above these gatekeepers are meta-gatekeepers who control information to the tribes and help keep all the tribes in some continuity. These may include government, school systems, and press/mass media. All of these adapted and played a specific role within the modern world. Most of the time there was enough continuity between the meta-gatekeepers and the local tribes, to maintain some type of common language—even when people may have radically differing perspectives.
But not everything would or could last forever. By the end of the 19th century, a few thinkers had already begun to see past the gatekeepers. People like Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche saw cracks in the foundation of the modern world.
For over 100 hundred years, the tiny cracks gradually spread through the fabric of modern societies, and by the mid twentieth century, some people already began talking about a post-modern world. Gradually the gatekeepers lost their power. It is difficult for me to pinpoint, but I think the Watergate controversy of the 70s marked a fundamental shift for the government as gatekeeper.
Public trust in the government sank to an all time low and politicians retreated more and more into tribal positions finding it harder and harder to mediate one common vision of the modern world. Their language became so tribe bound that by the mid 90s, we could no longer even agree on the meaning of what “is” is.
Several big blows to the media as gatekeeper came with the 2004 election as bloggers consistently challenged their right and ability to effectively serve as gatekeepers. By the end of the 2004 election cycle, some people were tempted to find out their news only from members of their tribe.
I think the school system is still transitioning but it will inevitably lose its status as a modernist gatekeeper. Already non-accredited informal schools are rapidly multiplying throughout the nation. Much like bloggers, these non-traditional schools are diversifying the academic content and breaking the stronghold of the traditional gatekeepers.
In a way, all this seems like a good thing. No control. No one telling me how to think. Yet, in the absence of these gatekeepers, we lose all filters. We are bombarded with information. So much information confronts us from so many different angles, we lose our ability to distinguish good information from bad information. Thus all is information is suspect.
In such an overflow, words lose their meaning. Poetry, the art which guards our words, is forgotten. No one has time to read or think about poetry. Instead, we bathe in an a non-stop onslaught of words. From the moment we awake to the moment we fall asleep, we are bombarded with information bits. Everyone has Attention Deficit Disorder: and everyone laughs about it. Everyone is becoming psychotic.
The stress of this post-modern age will only grow as the chaos intensifies. And it will continue to intensify: for a season. The war on terror is just one sign of modern world in chaos. There are many more wars going on. Our talk shows and our governments seem like mini war zones at times with persons hurling invectives upon one another like hand grenades.
They cannot debate in any classical sense because they cannot agree on the meaning of their words, let alone what information is important and how should it be understood. All they can do is engage in verbal duels. The loudest, crassest voices often shouts down the weaker voice.
In this world of chaos, gatekeepers at every level struggle to understand how to act and how to respond. Take churches for example. Some turn to economics, believing the market drives everything. If I find my authority in the market, then I will develop my systems around the fickleness of an ever-changing market. Some churches for example, change their worship styles and preaching styles and architecture to fit the demands of today’s market. Of course, that market may change tomorrow.
Others look to tradition as a source of authority: either they grow stiffer in some fundamentalist expressions of their faith or they embrace ancient forms and seek to breathe new life in them today.
This chaos simply cannot go on forever. As a Trinitarian Christian, I anticipate the rebirth of all things even now. I look forward with hope for we are truly moving toward the hope of God fully revealed to man.
Thus chaos will not overrun the earth. Eventually, new gatekeepers will emerge (or the old gatekeepers will re-emerge with newly defined filtering systems). At some point, our desire for continuity will overcome the extreme neo-tribalism period we are entering, and we’ll find new ways to connect our various tribes in some form of common life. Either we’ll find a way or a greater power will impose it and the people will accept it. This new world will probably mold some aspects of modernism, pre-modernism and possibly other newer perspectives into a way of seeing that provides some level of continuity for the multiple tribes.
But for now, we live in a growing cacophony of data. The question for me is, “How do I live in this increasing chaos, as a relational person that beholds a new heaven and new earth and lives toward the reality of that kingdom even now?” I don’t always know.
Part of it may have to with willingly denying myself some of the all-you-can-consume smorgasbord of data streaming at me from all directions. So I canceled my satellite television. What’s next? I don’t know, but I think it has something to with embracing the cross, exposing my weaknesses, and seeking to live in the reality of kingdom rooted in the relational love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Night Poem
My brother has pointed out that I'm a grogger: true, very true. So I guess I might post something. Here is poem I recently wrote, nothing genius, just a thought expressed one silent night at the end of a humid June.
Lord, thank you for the night.
Thank you for fashioned feet balancing this body tumbling out into the shadows.
Thank you for twisted trees weaving form into eyeless evening.
Thank you for warm incandescent porch lights embracing vespers with gentle grace.
Thank you for sweet smells hanging heavy in the dark damp air.
Thank you for trains pounding deeper into darkness, then looping into light.
Thank you for angel bugs, swirling silent symphonies across starless skies.
Thank you for planes gliding to births, ballgames, brides, beaches,
And deaths.
Lord, thank you for the night.
And for the sun that has already begun to rise.
Lord, thank you for the night.
Thank you for fashioned feet balancing this body tumbling out into the shadows.
Thank you for twisted trees weaving form into eyeless evening.
Thank you for warm incandescent porch lights embracing vespers with gentle grace.
Thank you for sweet smells hanging heavy in the dark damp air.
Thank you for trains pounding deeper into darkness, then looping into light.
Thank you for angel bugs, swirling silent symphonies across starless skies.
Thank you for planes gliding to births, ballgames, brides, beaches,
And deaths.
Lord, thank you for the night.
And for the sun that has already begun to rise.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
The Problem of Wineskins
I downloaded a great (and FREE) sermon by Douglas Wilson on wineskins. Wilson, with his humoruous, thoughtful presentation offers a delightful talk on the nature of the church. Highly recomended.
Update: Sorry but I think they rotate out the MP3 sermons, so the one I listed is not longer available for a free download. But I'm sure there are other good sermons on the site.
Update: Sorry but I think they rotate out the MP3 sermons, so the one I listed is not longer available for a free download. But I'm sure there are other good sermons on the site.
Flat Earth?
William Blake writes a poem praisng the flat earth. Was he blind to the advances of science? Did he miss the Copernican revolution? How could a man living in this modern world not realize the earth is a sphere?
I am not a student of Blake, but others have suggested that he despises a world reduced to pure mathmatics and drained of all the passion of living. (Blake scholars correct me if I'm wrong.) He equates a world void of passion and living on a mechanical Newtonian realm alone as the lowest level of existance, which he refers to as Ulro. When we speak of the earth as sphere, we are using mathematics to understand our world. We are focusing upon the universal without feasting on the particular.
The flat earth reminds us of the particularity of our existance. It's not just some tree, it's the dogwood in front of my house that captures my heart. It's not just the abstract principe of female that capture my heart, but the particular--women as realized in my particualr wife, Kelly.
In a world of global politics and national grocery chains (not to mention "branded" churches), we lose sight of the value in little things and local places. Blake calls us back to the particular and rejoices over the wonder of a flat earth.
From "Milton"
And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe:
And on its verge the Sun rises & sets, the Clouds bow
To meet the flat Earth & the Sea in such an order'd Space:
The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set
On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold;
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
Whe'er he goes, & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss.
Such are the Spaces called Earth & such its dimension.
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner
As of a Globe rolling thro' Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
William Blake
(cited in A Book of Luminous Things edited by Czelaw Milosz)
I am not a student of Blake, but others have suggested that he despises a world reduced to pure mathmatics and drained of all the passion of living. (Blake scholars correct me if I'm wrong.) He equates a world void of passion and living on a mechanical Newtonian realm alone as the lowest level of existance, which he refers to as Ulro. When we speak of the earth as sphere, we are using mathematics to understand our world. We are focusing upon the universal without feasting on the particular.
The flat earth reminds us of the particularity of our existance. It's not just some tree, it's the dogwood in front of my house that captures my heart. It's not just the abstract principe of female that capture my heart, but the particular--women as realized in my particualr wife, Kelly.
In a world of global politics and national grocery chains (not to mention "branded" churches), we lose sight of the value in little things and local places. Blake calls us back to the particular and rejoices over the wonder of a flat earth.
From "Milton"
And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe:
And on its verge the Sun rises & sets, the Clouds bow
To meet the flat Earth & the Sea in such an order'd Space:
The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set
On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold;
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
Whe'er he goes, & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss.
Such are the Spaces called Earth & such its dimension.
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner
As of a Globe rolling thro' Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
William Blake
(cited in A Book of Luminous Things edited by Czelaw Milosz)
Heroes of the Faith
You may have never heard about some of these people, and yet the halls of heaven echo with stories of God's mighty work through their lives. I encourage to take a moment and visit John Brown over at Scotwise to read some of his summaries of faithful servants of the Lord. May it quicken each of us to pursue wholeheartedly the call of God in our lives!
Friday, May 06, 2005
To Do One Thing Well
Mary Oliver challenges me. She opens my eyes to a world of stunning glory, and yet a world I cannot fully understand. In the midst of life and death, she finds wonder, and remind me of my longing to live well.
The Kingfisher
By Mary Oliver
The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
there are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
when the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don’t say he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.
The Kingfisher
By Mary Oliver
The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
there are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
when the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don’t say he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.
A Post?
Wow. I missed April! Not one post. But I have been studying. I've been faciliating two different bible studies. Between working full time, working on various ministry projects and faciliating these studies, I have been in constant motion. I did finish some studies notes for 1 Peter - "A guide for dwelling in earthly places as
heavenly pilgrims." These notes were developed for my own study but I started handing them out because I thought others might find them useful and now I've posted them. Unfortunately, I didn't include a reference section (which I still need to add). When preparing this study I consulted JND Kelly, Ramsey Michaels, the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, and I prepared against the backdrop of NT Wright's thoughts. Reading 1 Peter reminded me of the value of immersing ourselves in the stories of the Old Testament. When we don't keep the stories fresh in our minds, we can easily lose teh wonderfully rich allusion present all throughout the text.
I am also faciliating a study on Galatians - "The Good News That's Too Good to Be True." I'll post those notes when I finish.
I must say that I absolutely love study the Bible. Not to argue the texts; not to knock people in the head; not to garner spiritual brownie points--but to encounter the Word of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit quickens my heart to the presence of Christ, I am overwhelmed by His goodness. God is better than I could even imagine him to be.
heavenly pilgrims." These notes were developed for my own study but I started handing them out because I thought others might find them useful and now I've posted them. Unfortunately, I didn't include a reference section (which I still need to add). When preparing this study I consulted JND Kelly, Ramsey Michaels, the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, and I prepared against the backdrop of NT Wright's thoughts. Reading 1 Peter reminded me of the value of immersing ourselves in the stories of the Old Testament. When we don't keep the stories fresh in our minds, we can easily lose teh wonderfully rich allusion present all throughout the text.
I am also faciliating a study on Galatians - "The Good News That's Too Good to Be True." I'll post those notes when I finish.
I must say that I absolutely love study the Bible. Not to argue the texts; not to knock people in the head; not to garner spiritual brownie points--but to encounter the Word of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit quickens my heart to the presence of Christ, I am overwhelmed by His goodness. God is better than I could even imagine him to be.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Stunning
BecomingMyself posted an amazing story about a young girl who paints breathtaking pictures of human faces, particularly images of faith. Her art and her faith are intertwined. According to a Christianity Today article, she began sharing visions about God and led the whole family in converting to Christianity.
Take a look at Akaine's art and poetry: it is absolutely stunning. The Lord is good and His grace is overwhelming!
"It wasn't just art that was happening. Simultaneous with art was a spiritual awakening," says Akiane's mother, Forelli Kramarik. "It all began to happen when she started to share her dreams and visions."Prior to that time, Forelli had been raised as an unbeliever, in an atheistic family from Lithuania."And my husband was a former Catholic and did not share in the family beliefs. We didn't pray together, there was no discussion about God, and we didn't go to church. Then all of a sudden, Akiane was starting to talk about God."
Forelli's young daughter was homeschooled, she had no babysitters, and the family watched no television."We were with the kids all the time, and so these words from Akiane about God didn't come from the outside—we knew that. But there suddenly were intense conversations about God's love, His place [in our lives], and she would describe everything in detail."
Take a look at Akaine's art and poetry: it is absolutely stunning. The Lord is good and His grace is overwhelming!
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Otherwise
A friend handed me this poem recently. When I was typing it in tonight, I thought some other folks might enjoy reading it. This is by Jane Kenyon. For a wide selection of her poems, visit Poem Hunter.
Otherwise
By Jane Kenyon
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Otherwise
By Jane Kenyon
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Stanley Grenz
Stanley Grenz died over the weekend. His writing enriched my life and I am grateful to God for his life of faithful scholarship. For those trying to understand trinitarian faith in the midst of a postmodern milieu, he offered vital observations. May the grace of our sweet Lord Jesus surround his grieving family, and may he know the eternal embrace of a loving Savior.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Heart of the World - Chapter 2
The Coming of the Light
In chapter 2 of Heart of the World, Von Balthasar discusses “The Coming of the Light.” When the Word of God appears, he is the expression of love. When God comes to Noah, he comes in judgment, destroying the wicked. The world continues in its darkness and continues to hide from the light. But this time, as God draws near, He does not destroy but restores. “When God thunders, the cloud of wrath pours out a rustling of love” (38).
Von Balthasar introduces an idea that is worth further consideration and application, he suggests that the natural movement of all things is upward. He says,
Because God is essentially complete, he does not move upwards toward completion. He moves downward not by necessity but by choice to reveal his love. Man’s voracious appetite seeks to consume the light of God’s love. Thus Von Balthasar can say, “The light came into the darkness, but the darkness had no eye for the light: it had only jaws” (39). Outside of redemption, even in the revealing of God’s love, man’s corruption subverts the goodness of God, seeking to consume the fountain of love in it ravenous lust. But the encounter with God’s love means death to our urge and a transformation into God’s love.
The problem is that even though human strives upward, they are closed to the true light. They turn from the light because they do not want their evil deeds to be seen by the light. “He beamed into the gloom, but the darkness turned away” (41). In a masterful metaphor, Von Balthasar describes the sin-filled world:
This is a war for God’s beloved creation. Sin has so corrupted the interior of the world that it is trapped in an abyss of self consumed lust. Its only hope is to be redeemed from the inside out: God will enter into the heart of His creation, exposing His love filled heart to all the powers of evil for only love can overcome this damnation. Here is an extended quote that captures the stunning beauty of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ:
In chapter 2 of Heart of the World, Von Balthasar discusses “The Coming of the Light.” When the Word of God appears, he is the expression of love. When God comes to Noah, he comes in judgment, destroying the wicked. The world continues in its darkness and continues to hide from the light. But this time, as God draws near, He does not destroy but restores. “When God thunders, the cloud of wrath pours out a rustling of love” (38).
Von Balthasar introduces an idea that is worth further consideration and application, he suggests that the natural movement of all things is upward. He says,
What comes from below naturally strives for the heights. Its impulse presses on to the light; its impetus a seeking of power. Every finite spirit wants to assert itself and luxuriantly unfurl its leafy crown in the sun of existence. Whatever is poor wants to be rich—rich in power, in warmth, through wisdom and sympathy. This is the law of the world. For all things strive to pass from enveloped seed to fully developed life. The possible impatiently presses on toward form. The obscure must move towards the light through rubble and earth. (38)In this movement, things collide. Part of the fall is the absence of harmony is the development of persons and things. We often try to occupy the same space at the same time: thus giving way to motivations and actions that are rooted in violence toward others. He continues,
And in this general onrush, creatures collide and place limits on each other, and these limits are movable in the play and strife over existence, and the borders between creatures are called customer, convention, family and state. (38)Von Balthasar suggests that the movement beyond self is a good thing, a sign of God’s essential goodness, but the absence of harmony in creation turns this proper drive into the seeds for violence and corruption in human relations.
Because God is essentially complete, he does not move upwards toward completion. He moves downward not by necessity but by choice to reveal his love. Man’s voracious appetite seeks to consume the light of God’s love. Thus Von Balthasar can say, “The light came into the darkness, but the darkness had no eye for the light: it had only jaws” (39). Outside of redemption, even in the revealing of God’s love, man’s corruption subverts the goodness of God, seeking to consume the fountain of love in it ravenous lust. But the encounter with God’s love means death to our urge and a transformation into God’s love.
Man wants to soar up, but the Word wants to descend. Thus the two will meet half-way, in the middle, in the place of the Mediator. But they will cross like swords cross; their wills opposed to one another. For God and man are related in a manner far different from man and woman: and in no way do they complement one another. And we may not say that, to show his fullness, God needs the void, as man needs fullness to nourish his void. (40)Von Balthasar proper clarification of this encounter maintains the distinction between Creator and created. This is not pantheism. This is the God who is complete in Himself, freely loving, freely embracing, freely transforming his creation. Love comes down to interrupt our ascent and turn us around. I think it is here that Von Balthasar makes an interesting distinction about our Trinitarian faith. Most religions are moving upward: even if they deny a creator per se they are moving beyond matter to immaterial (even atheism could be said to move beyond the particular to the universal). But the Incarnation embraces the particular. Listen again,
…instead of going past God’s Word in its descent and pursuing the rash ascent to the Father, we are now to turn around and, along with the Word, go back down the steps we have climbed, find God on the road to the world, on no road other than that by which the Son journeys on towards the Father. For only love redeems. There are not two sorts of love. There is not, alongside God’s love, another, human love. Rather, when God so determines and he proclaims his Word, love then descends, love then flows out into the void, and God has set up his claim and his emblem over every love. (40-41)
The problem is that even though human strives upward, they are closed to the true light. They turn from the light because they do not want their evil deeds to be seen by the light. “He beamed into the gloom, but the darkness turned away” (41). In a masterful metaphor, Von Balthasar describes the sin-filled world:
Closed and well-armored was the world against God from all sides, and it had no eyes to look out since all of its glances were turned inwards on itself. But its interior resembled a hall of mirrors in which the finite appeared refracted as far as the eye could see, multiplying itself infinitely and thus playing the self-sufficient god. Only the world’s gullet gaped outwards, ready to swallow down whoever dared approach. (42)
This is a war for God’s beloved creation. Sin has so corrupted the interior of the world that it is trapped in an abyss of self consumed lust. Its only hope is to be redeemed from the inside out: God will enter into the heart of His creation, exposing His love filled heart to all the powers of evil for only love can overcome this damnation. Here is an extended quote that captures the stunning beauty of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ:
And now God’s Word saw that his descent could entail nothing but his own death and ruination—that his light must sink down into the gloom—he accepted the battle and the declaration of war. And he devised the unfathomable ruse: he would plunge, like Jonas into the monster’s belly and thus penetrate death’s innermost lair; he would experience the farthest dungeon of sin’s mania and drink the cup down to the dregs; he would offer his brow to man’s incalculable craze for power and violence; in his own futile mission, he would demonstrate the futility of the wolrd; in his impotent obedience to the Father, he would visibly show the impotence of revolt; through his own weakness unto death he would bring to light the deathly weakness of such a despairing resistance to God; he would let the world do its will and thereby accomplish the will of the Father; he would grant the world its will, thereby breaking the world’s will; he would allow his own vessel to be shattered, thereby pouring himself out; by pouring out one single drop of the divine Heart’s blood he would sweeten the immense and bitter ocean. This was intended to be the most incomprehensible of exchanges: from the most extreme opposition would come the highest union, and the might of his supreme victory was to prove itself in his utter disgrace and defeat. For his weakness would already be the victory of his love for the Father, and as a deed of his supreme strength, this weakness would far surpass and sustain in itself the world’s pitiful feebleness. He alone would henceforth be the measure and thus also the meaning of all impotence. He wanted to sink to low that in the future all falling would be a falling into him, and every streamlet of bitterness and despair would henceforth run down into his lowermost abyss.Like a Trojan horse, love enters in the form of a human heart and once inside the gates of humankind, Jesus conquers the kingdoms of this world, revealing the kingdom of the heavens through obedient love. His heart of love overcomes the darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it. He takes the breach of sin and destruction into his own heart. Von Balthasar says,
No fighter is more divine than the one who can achieve victory through defeat. In the instant when he receives the deadly wound, his opponent falls to the ground, himself struck a final blow. For he strikes love and is thus himself struck by love. And by letting itself be struck, love proves what had to be proven: that it is indeed love. Once struck, the hate-filled opponent recognizes his boundaries and understands: behave as he pleases, nevertheless he is bounded on every side by a love that is great than he. Everything he may fling at love—insults, indifference, contempt, scornful derision, murderous silence, demonic slander—all of it can ever but prove love’s superiority; and the black the night, the more radiant does love shine. (43-44)
For it is not ecstasy that redeems, but rather obedience. And it is not freedom that enlarges, but rather our bonds. And so it was that God’s Word came into the world bound by the compulsion of love. As the Father’s Servant and as the true Atlas, he took the world upon his shoulders. Through his own deeds he joined together two hostile wills, and, by binding them, he undid the inextricable knot. (55)At the center of the world, this Heart brings God’s particularized love and grace to particular persons. It is not simply a universal restoration, it is the restoration of the the particular. “No destiny resembles another, and no grace is impersonal” (56). Just as a heart pumps blood to all its members, the Heart of God circulates love to and through each particular member of his creation.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Radical Trust
Desert winds spread the blinding showers of sand, and bury me in burning blackness. Hot, dry air smothers my lungs as I choke down another moment of stark existence. Stripping away the facades of luxury, harsh landscapes reveal what will stand and what will fall.
The mountains that seemed invincible now topple, crumble and drift into an ocean of chaos. The stable world I thought existed never really did. All that I trusted is consumed in the endless sinking, shifting ground.
In the landscape of the soul, I’ve tasted the sweet death of desert life: again and again. The desert reminds me that man does not life by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Like a crying baby or a thirsty drunk, I suck the stone for one more drop of living water.
Radical trust in the goodness of God is my only hope. But whose god? Everyone has a god and probably several. Whom or what do I trust? Politicians? As G.K. Chesterton once noted, “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” Reporters? Everyday the spin changes with the wind—and the ratings. The latest preacher or guru selling tapes, books, new and better techniques, secret principles, or magic oil from their holy land?
Some days it seems as though everyone is selling somebody something. Including myself.
We’re all con-men try to convince ourselves and others that we are better than we are, smarter than we are, and deserve more than we have.
The merciful desert reveals our gods for what they are: hot air.
Into this barren world, love shines. Jesus reveals God—not as a door-to-door salesman pitching one more life changing aid with slick slogans—but rather a community of love. He makes the stunning suggestion that in the heart of the Creator is an unending flow of love. This personal, all-encompassing love embraces this world and all its pain.
Jesus comes to reveal God in our midst and takes our pain and our suffering and our agony onto and into himself. In the anguish of Calvary, he bears the breach of an aching world. In his actions, he reveals the lovingkindness or hesed of God. Again and again and again he embraces the weak, the oppressed, the outsider, the despised, the failure, the faker, the liar, the cheat, the broken.
In the desert, I realize my weakness: I face the hidden failure lurking in the shadows. The desert shines light into that abyss of my heart revealing a desperate darkness. Others might confidently trumpet their own perfected selves, but I cannot deny the dark struggles of a soul sometimes light and sometimes dark, longing for love but prone to hate.
In the desert, I cling to the only thing that is real: the lovingkindness of God. My only hope is the love of a Creator that sustains all things by His word. Radical trust in His mercy, empowers me to let go of the sloganeering, the salesmanship, the need to protect my turf or my reputation, the desire to accumulate, the insatiable drive for more and more pleasure.
Radical trust allows me to simply let go.
In the wind of His love, I let go. I let go of failure and success. I let go of praising and cursing. I let go and rest. And dance. And play.
And embrace.
The mountains that seemed invincible now topple, crumble and drift into an ocean of chaos. The stable world I thought existed never really did. All that I trusted is consumed in the endless sinking, shifting ground.
In the landscape of the soul, I’ve tasted the sweet death of desert life: again and again. The desert reminds me that man does not life by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Like a crying baby or a thirsty drunk, I suck the stone for one more drop of living water.
Radical trust in the goodness of God is my only hope. But whose god? Everyone has a god and probably several. Whom or what do I trust? Politicians? As G.K. Chesterton once noted, “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” Reporters? Everyday the spin changes with the wind—and the ratings. The latest preacher or guru selling tapes, books, new and better techniques, secret principles, or magic oil from their holy land?
Some days it seems as though everyone is selling somebody something. Including myself.
We’re all con-men try to convince ourselves and others that we are better than we are, smarter than we are, and deserve more than we have.
The merciful desert reveals our gods for what they are: hot air.
Into this barren world, love shines. Jesus reveals God—not as a door-to-door salesman pitching one more life changing aid with slick slogans—but rather a community of love. He makes the stunning suggestion that in the heart of the Creator is an unending flow of love. This personal, all-encompassing love embraces this world and all its pain.
Jesus comes to reveal God in our midst and takes our pain and our suffering and our agony onto and into himself. In the anguish of Calvary, he bears the breach of an aching world. In his actions, he reveals the lovingkindness or hesed of God. Again and again and again he embraces the weak, the oppressed, the outsider, the despised, the failure, the faker, the liar, the cheat, the broken.
In the desert, I realize my weakness: I face the hidden failure lurking in the shadows. The desert shines light into that abyss of my heart revealing a desperate darkness. Others might confidently trumpet their own perfected selves, but I cannot deny the dark struggles of a soul sometimes light and sometimes dark, longing for love but prone to hate.
In the desert, I cling to the only thing that is real: the lovingkindness of God. My only hope is the love of a Creator that sustains all things by His word. Radical trust in His mercy, empowers me to let go of the sloganeering, the salesmanship, the need to protect my turf or my reputation, the desire to accumulate, the insatiable drive for more and more pleasure.
Radical trust allows me to simply let go.
In the wind of His love, I let go. I let go of failure and success. I let go of praising and cursing. I let go and rest. And dance. And play.
And embrace.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Heart of the World
As part of my Lenten mediations this year, I’ve been re-reading The Heart of the World by Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Even in translation, the force of his metaphors shapes words into images that pierce with heart with stunning clarity. I might try to jot down a few highlights that are cause for particular celebration.
Von Balthasar opens by focusing upon the thrust of the book, the cross of Christ at the center of all things. He says,
He quotes Cyril of Jerusalem, “On the Cross God stretched out his hands to encompass the bounds of the universe.” The cross is real power revealed in real weakness, and it reveals the love of God that beats as the heart of all things—anticipating and sustaining all things by his Word alone.
The broken body of Christ becomes the focal point of the people of God. And in Christ we who were not a people become a people. Thus the cross is at the heart of all restored relations: between man and God and between man and man.
In chapter 1, Von Balthasar highlights the despondent condition of humanity: “Prisons of finitude! Like every other being, man is born in many prisons.” In the fall, the cosmic harmony of particularity and universality collapse. All humans wander alone in their grief—longing for and resisting the restored bonds of relation. He says,
We as isolated beings long for communion, but we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in the endlessly moving stream of time. “The rigid ground under is already beginning to tremble and give way” (21). In one sense, all of existence appears in a flux. He says,
Time continues to swirl and move and nothing can stop it. “You cannot draw the river onto the dry bank, there to trap its imperative to flow, as if it were a fish” (22). “The wise among men seek to fathom the foundations of existence, but all they can do is to describe one wave of the current” (22). As Von Balthasar continues discussing the ever changing, transforming nature of time, he looks to the fact of our existence in this ocean as a sign of love. And the rhythm of the oceans of time might be likened to the beating of a heart, the heart of this world: the love of God. Beneath the ever changing flux of existence, beneath the seeming chaos of this world, is a love that cannot be denied.
As long as we are blind to the hand of God that sustains and supports our every breath, we continue to struggle in the darkness like blind, drunk men. But when God in His grace opens our eyes to the presence of His love, the isolation of space and endless flux of time become the very realms where I rest in the endless flow of His love. I am his servant and He is Lord of all.
Von Balthasar opens by focusing upon the thrust of the book, the cross of Christ at the center of all things. He says,
The very form of the cross, extending out into the four winds, always told the ancient Church that the Cross means solidarity: its outstretched arms would gladly embrace the universe. (13)
He quotes Cyril of Jerusalem, “On the Cross God stretched out his hands to encompass the bounds of the universe.” The cross is real power revealed in real weakness, and it reveals the love of God that beats as the heart of all things—anticipating and sustaining all things by his Word alone.
The broken body of Christ becomes the focal point of the people of God. And in Christ we who were not a people become a people. Thus the cross is at the heart of all restored relations: between man and God and between man and man.
In chapter 1, Von Balthasar highlights the despondent condition of humanity: “Prisons of finitude! Like every other being, man is born in many prisons.” In the fall, the cosmic harmony of particularity and universality collapse. All humans wander alone in their grief—longing for and resisting the restored bonds of relation. He says,
How far it is from one being to its closest neighbor! And even if they love each oter and wave to one another from island to island, even if they attempt to exchange solitudes and pretend they have unity, how much more painfully does disappointment then fall upon them when they touch invisible bars—the cold glass pane against which they hurl themselves like captive birds. No one can tear down his own dungeon; no one knows who inhabits the next cell. (19)
We as isolated beings long for communion, but we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in the endlessly moving stream of time. “The rigid ground under is already beginning to tremble and give way” (21). In one sense, all of existence appears in a flux. He says,
Are you grieving? Trust Time: soon you will be laughing. Are you laughing? You cannot hold fast your laughter, for soon you will be weeping. You are blown from mood to mood, from one state to another, from waking to sleeping and from sleeping again to waking. (21)
Time continues to swirl and move and nothing can stop it. “You cannot draw the river onto the dry bank, there to trap its imperative to flow, as if it were a fish” (22). “The wise among men seek to fathom the foundations of existence, but all they can do is to describe one wave of the current” (22). As Von Balthasar continues discussing the ever changing, transforming nature of time, he looks to the fact of our existence in this ocean as a sign of love. And the rhythm of the oceans of time might be likened to the beating of a heart, the heart of this world: the love of God. Beneath the ever changing flux of existence, beneath the seeming chaos of this world, is a love that cannot be denied.
You sense Time and yet have not sensed this heart? You feel the stream of grace which rushes into you, warm and red, and yet have not felt how you are loved? You seek for a proof, and yet you yourself are that proof. You seek to entrap him, the Unknown One, in the mesh of your knowledge, and yet you yourself are entrapped in the inescapable net of his might. You would like to grasp, but you yourself are already grasped. You would like to overpower and you yourself being overpowered. You pretend to be seeking but you have long (and for all time) been found. (29)
As long as we are blind to the hand of God that sustains and supports our every breath, we continue to struggle in the darkness like blind, drunk men. But when God in His grace opens our eyes to the presence of His love, the isolation of space and endless flux of time become the very realms where I rest in the endless flow of His love. I am his servant and He is Lord of all.
Monday, March 07, 2005
James Houston
Last year I downloaded a bunch of lectures from the James Houston website and lately I've been re-listening to these lectures. Well into his 80s, Houston is a seasoned follower of Jesus Christ and offers the gentle wisdom that comes from years of following. A former Oxford Don, he helped start Regent College in the early 70s. He talks primarily on the spiritual life and while living in the light of the Reformers, he draws from the whole rich history of spiritual devotion. I think it would be worth your while to visit his site, read his writings and listen to his lectures.
New Media and Values
Yesterday after church, a few of us went to our usual Sunday lunch spot: El Sazon. Michelle brought a friend, "Kirby" to meet us, and we immediately dove into a lengthy discussion on Wendell Berry, technology, and the challenge of living as persons created in the image of God.
This morning, I ran across an interesting essay that connects with this challenge of technology vs. persons about the New Media and the implications for values choices. Some of you might find it worth spend a few minutes reading. Media Determinism in Hyperspace. Note: the links to essay sections are at bottom of page.
Update: The author provides an interesting highlight of some the thinkers who have contributed to the conversation about the the impact and potential impact of technology in the human situation. Does technology makes us more or less human? This is mostly a quick overview but wortwhile for catching some of the highilghts of this ongiong discussion.
As I read, I was thinking about how Dumitru Staniloae interprets the Fathers to teach that God creates time and space as a realm when humans can enter into relationship with him and with one another. Sin thwarts this natural order and in turn time and space are no longer transparent to love but become opaque and actually block the light of love.
Update: That link for Staniloae led to other links that were dead or not in English. This link provides a little more background on the theoligan and his works. Staniloae
This morning, I ran across an interesting essay that connects with this challenge of technology vs. persons about the New Media and the implications for values choices. Some of you might find it worth spend a few minutes reading. Media Determinism in Hyperspace. Note: the links to essay sections are at bottom of page.
Update: The author provides an interesting highlight of some the thinkers who have contributed to the conversation about the the impact and potential impact of technology in the human situation. Does technology makes us more or less human? This is mostly a quick overview but wortwhile for catching some of the highilghts of this ongiong discussion.
As I read, I was thinking about how Dumitru Staniloae interprets the Fathers to teach that God creates time and space as a realm when humans can enter into relationship with him and with one another. Sin thwarts this natural order and in turn time and space are no longer transparent to love but become opaque and actually block the light of love.
Update: That link for Staniloae led to other links that were dead or not in English. This link provides a little more background on the theoligan and his works. Staniloae
Dark vs. Light
Yesterday's lectionary reading focused on Jesus healing the blind man. At the end of the story, Jesus says," For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." The healing of the blind man becomes a way for him to speak of sight and blindness in a whole different way. Speaking to those who view themselves as God's elect, Jesus action and statement reinforces a constant theme: "Your hope and your confidence must be in God alone. Election, following Torah, the temple, all your religious observances, all the promises--these are all rooted in God's goodness. So don't misplace your trust." His stories and actions and words continually remind the listener that they must look beyond all these externals to the Father and trust in the Father for their redemption. By failing to do so, they reveal themselves as blind, as cursed by God.
Thus some people are blind and in darkness, whereas others can see and are in the light. There's a contrast apparent all through the gospel, in fact all the Scripture. People in darkness and people in light. In John 3, Jesus calls this judgment, "the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil."
If you follow this line of thought throughout the bible, you'll find many contrasts between people who are in the darkness and people who are in the light. Just reflecting on the metaphor itself, we see the obvious: people in the darkness cannot see, people in the light can see. As the Proverbs say:
It might be beneficial in our spiritual study, to take time and list out contrasts throughout the text of those in darkness vs. those in light. One stumbles, the other walks along a brighter and bright path. Romans contrasts Adam as the father of those in darkness vs. Jesus as the Father of those in the light. Like the fateful act in the garden, those in the darkness take what is not given; those in the light receive all things as gifts from God. Darkness is characterized by striving; light is resting. Those in the dark look inward for their identity; those in the light look upward for their identity. Paul's discussion of the works of the flesh vs. the fruit of the Spirit might be seen as a continuation of this dark vs. light theme.
The other New Testament reading from Sunday was from Paul's letter to the Ephesians. At one point he says, "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light..." (Ephesians 5:8). Paul presents this contrast in a way that helps us to create a framework for personal reflection. He says you were in darkness but now you are in the light. We have moved from darkness to light. This didn't happen by chance, but is a gift from God. As Paul writes in Colossians, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14).
Just as Jesus heals the blind man, God is the one delivers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. So Paul suggests that our position is in the light. Our trust in Jesus is a sign that God has opened our blind eyes. He has freed us from darkness and brought us into the light of His son. After Paul writes that "now you are light in the Lord," he says "Walk as children of light." Thus Paul says in effect, "you're in the light, so walk in the light." He first indicates our position: light. Then he follows with a command: walk in the light.
In other words, be who you are. We are not striving to become children of the Light. We are not striving to produce spiritual fruit. By the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in accordance with the will of the Father, we are children of the light, children of the Spirit. Thus the fruit of the Spirit is our natural expression. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control are all naturally part of who we are in Christ. Thus Paul is exhorting us to live as what we are.
When we notice the absence of such fruits or the presence of the "works of the flesh," we look to the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ and ask for his mercy and grace. He is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. He shows us who we are in the light, then we long to walk and live in the light, and he works it out in us.
Our life becomes a journey of trust. We trust that the same God who opened our blind eyes, and has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness, will ultimately present us as blameless. So we move toward who we are. I have been made perfect in love, so in trusting obedience I move toward love. I have been given fullness of joy, so in trusting obedience I move toward joy. I am the righteousness of God in Christ, so in trusting obedience I move toward righteousness. All movement is a movement of trusting obedience that God has completed this work in me and will eventually fully reveal it through me.
These texts are perfect reminders of our Lenten journey to become who we are. Blessings!
Thus some people are blind and in darkness, whereas others can see and are in the light. There's a contrast apparent all through the gospel, in fact all the Scripture. People in darkness and people in light. In John 3, Jesus calls this judgment, "the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil."
If you follow this line of thought throughout the bible, you'll find many contrasts between people who are in the darkness and people who are in the light. Just reflecting on the metaphor itself, we see the obvious: people in the darkness cannot see, people in the light can see. As the Proverbs say:
18But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
19The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
It might be beneficial in our spiritual study, to take time and list out contrasts throughout the text of those in darkness vs. those in light. One stumbles, the other walks along a brighter and bright path. Romans contrasts Adam as the father of those in darkness vs. Jesus as the Father of those in the light. Like the fateful act in the garden, those in the darkness take what is not given; those in the light receive all things as gifts from God. Darkness is characterized by striving; light is resting. Those in the dark look inward for their identity; those in the light look upward for their identity. Paul's discussion of the works of the flesh vs. the fruit of the Spirit might be seen as a continuation of this dark vs. light theme.
19Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Gal 5:19-23)
The other New Testament reading from Sunday was from Paul's letter to the Ephesians. At one point he says, "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light..." (Ephesians 5:8). Paul presents this contrast in a way that helps us to create a framework for personal reflection. He says you were in darkness but now you are in the light. We have moved from darkness to light. This didn't happen by chance, but is a gift from God. As Paul writes in Colossians, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14).
Just as Jesus heals the blind man, God is the one delivers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. So Paul suggests that our position is in the light. Our trust in Jesus is a sign that God has opened our blind eyes. He has freed us from darkness and brought us into the light of His son. After Paul writes that "now you are light in the Lord," he says "Walk as children of light." Thus Paul says in effect, "you're in the light, so walk in the light." He first indicates our position: light. Then he follows with a command: walk in the light.
In other words, be who you are. We are not striving to become children of the Light. We are not striving to produce spiritual fruit. By the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in accordance with the will of the Father, we are children of the light, children of the Spirit. Thus the fruit of the Spirit is our natural expression. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control are all naturally part of who we are in Christ. Thus Paul is exhorting us to live as what we are.
When we notice the absence of such fruits or the presence of the "works of the flesh," we look to the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ and ask for his mercy and grace. He is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. He shows us who we are in the light, then we long to walk and live in the light, and he works it out in us.
Our life becomes a journey of trust. We trust that the same God who opened our blind eyes, and has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness, will ultimately present us as blameless. So we move toward who we are. I have been made perfect in love, so in trusting obedience I move toward love. I have been given fullness of joy, so in trusting obedience I move toward joy. I am the righteousness of God in Christ, so in trusting obedience I move toward righteousness. All movement is a movement of trusting obedience that God has completed this work in me and will eventually fully reveal it through me.
These texts are perfect reminders of our Lenten journey to become who we are. Blessings!
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
St. David's Day
March 1, 2005
Happy St. David’s Day! St. David is the patron Saint of Wales much like Patrick is to Ireland. Many churches throughout Wales are dedicated to him and he is remembered for planting monasteries. It appears that Celtic Christians often spread the gospel by planting monasteries, small communities of faith. Like leaven, the members of these communities sought to live the reality of the kingdom in the midst of the world. Some writers have suggested that they might be known as “outposts of heaven.”
One challenge for any ongoing community is to keep the vision alive and not fall into patterns that lead to decaying faith and relationships. Thus these communities often returned afresh to their roots of faith to rediscover who and what they were called to be. Part of St. David’s mission may have been to help foster spiritual renewal in these communities.
His life’s final message played an important role in communicating and forming Welsh spirituality. He said, “Lords, brothers and sisters, be joyful and keep your faith and your belief, and do the little things that you have heard and seen from me.” The call to an honest, joyful and simple working out of faith in the “little things” still resonates today.
St. David’s message may help us in our travel through the Lenten wilderness. In one sense, Lent is about returning to our roots—reconverting in a sense. So many outside the Christian faith fail to see the true reality of the “good news” because we often get so distracted by the battles or trends of the moment.
Let us return afresh to the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord, meaning that in the mystery of His great love and providence, God has entered human history. He has identified with human suffering by taking the pain and brokenness and sin of an anguished world into himself and thus restoring all things.
While evil may still seem strong and threatening upon our planet, it cannot quench hope. The joy and peace of the gospel will prevail. Not through human strength, not through some church planner’s agenda but through the goodness of our God. Let us embrace this hope and become people who live not by the strength of human power or our ingenuity always striving to get ahead, but rather people of faith who live by radical trust in the love revealed in our sweet Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is a wonderful poem in honor of St David by the great Welsh poet, Gwenallt. Early in life Gwenallt sought to bring social change as an atheist Marxist, but the emptiness of this worldview eventually became apparent and he returned to the faith of his fathers, continuing to work for live for the reality of the kingdom.
St. David (Dewi Sant)
There is no border between two worlds in the Church;
The Church militant on earth is the same
As the victorious Church in Heaven.
And the saints will be in the two-one Church.
They will come to worship with us, a little congregation,
The saints, our oldest ancestors,
Who built Wales on the foundation of
The Cradle, the Cross, and the Empty Grave;
And they will go out as before to wander through
Their old familiar places
And bring the Gospel to Wales.
I saw David strolling from county to county like
God’s gypsy
With the Gospel and the Altar in his caravan;
And coming to us to the Colleges and schools
To show the purpose of learning.
He went down to the bottom of the pit with the miners
And threw the light of his wise lamp on the coal-face;
On the platform of the steel works he put on the
goggles and the little blue shirt
And showed the Christian being purified like the
metal in the furnace;
And led the proletariat to his unrespectable Church.
He carried the Church everywhere
As a body, which was life and brain and will
That did little and great things.
He brought the Church to our homes,
Put the Holy Vessels on the kitchen table,
And got bread from the pantry and bad wine from the cellar,
And stood behind the table like a tramp
Lest he should hide the wonder of the Sacrifice from us.
And after Communion we chatter by the fireside,
And he spoke to us about God’s natural order,
The person, the family, the nation and the society of nations,
And the Cross keeping us from turning one of them into a god.
He said that God shaped our nation
For His Own purpose,
And her death would impair that Order.
Anger furrowed in his forehead
As he lashed us for licking the arse of the English Leviathan,
And letting ourselves, in his Christian country,
Be turned into Pavlov’s dogs.
We asked him for his forgiveness, his strength, and his ardour
And, before he left us, told him
To give the Lord Jesus Christ our poor congratulations,
And ask Him if we could come to Him
To praise Him forever in Heaven,
When that longed for moment comes
And we have to say “Good night” to the world.
(1951)
Happy St. David’s Day! St. David is the patron Saint of Wales much like Patrick is to Ireland. Many churches throughout Wales are dedicated to him and he is remembered for planting monasteries. It appears that Celtic Christians often spread the gospel by planting monasteries, small communities of faith. Like leaven, the members of these communities sought to live the reality of the kingdom in the midst of the world. Some writers have suggested that they might be known as “outposts of heaven.”
One challenge for any ongoing community is to keep the vision alive and not fall into patterns that lead to decaying faith and relationships. Thus these communities often returned afresh to their roots of faith to rediscover who and what they were called to be. Part of St. David’s mission may have been to help foster spiritual renewal in these communities.
His life’s final message played an important role in communicating and forming Welsh spirituality. He said, “Lords, brothers and sisters, be joyful and keep your faith and your belief, and do the little things that you have heard and seen from me.” The call to an honest, joyful and simple working out of faith in the “little things” still resonates today.
St. David’s message may help us in our travel through the Lenten wilderness. In one sense, Lent is about returning to our roots—reconverting in a sense. So many outside the Christian faith fail to see the true reality of the “good news” because we often get so distracted by the battles or trends of the moment.
Let us return afresh to the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord, meaning that in the mystery of His great love and providence, God has entered human history. He has identified with human suffering by taking the pain and brokenness and sin of an anguished world into himself and thus restoring all things.
While evil may still seem strong and threatening upon our planet, it cannot quench hope. The joy and peace of the gospel will prevail. Not through human strength, not through some church planner’s agenda but through the goodness of our God. Let us embrace this hope and become people who live not by the strength of human power or our ingenuity always striving to get ahead, but rather people of faith who live by radical trust in the love revealed in our sweet Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is a wonderful poem in honor of St David by the great Welsh poet, Gwenallt. Early in life Gwenallt sought to bring social change as an atheist Marxist, but the emptiness of this worldview eventually became apparent and he returned to the faith of his fathers, continuing to work for live for the reality of the kingdom.
St. David (Dewi Sant)
There is no border between two worlds in the Church;
The Church militant on earth is the same
As the victorious Church in Heaven.
And the saints will be in the two-one Church.
They will come to worship with us, a little congregation,
The saints, our oldest ancestors,
Who built Wales on the foundation of
The Cradle, the Cross, and the Empty Grave;
And they will go out as before to wander through
Their old familiar places
And bring the Gospel to Wales.
I saw David strolling from county to county like
God’s gypsy
With the Gospel and the Altar in his caravan;
And coming to us to the Colleges and schools
To show the purpose of learning.
He went down to the bottom of the pit with the miners
And threw the light of his wise lamp on the coal-face;
On the platform of the steel works he put on the
goggles and the little blue shirt
And showed the Christian being purified like the
metal in the furnace;
And led the proletariat to his unrespectable Church.
He carried the Church everywhere
As a body, which was life and brain and will
That did little and great things.
He brought the Church to our homes,
Put the Holy Vessels on the kitchen table,
And got bread from the pantry and bad wine from the cellar,
And stood behind the table like a tramp
Lest he should hide the wonder of the Sacrifice from us.
And after Communion we chatter by the fireside,
And he spoke to us about God’s natural order,
The person, the family, the nation and the society of nations,
And the Cross keeping us from turning one of them into a god.
He said that God shaped our nation
For His Own purpose,
And her death would impair that Order.
Anger furrowed in his forehead
As he lashed us for licking the arse of the English Leviathan,
And letting ourselves, in his Christian country,
Be turned into Pavlov’s dogs.
We asked him for his forgiveness, his strength, and his ardour
And, before he left us, told him
To give the Lord Jesus Christ our poor congratulations,
And ask Him if we could come to Him
To praise Him forever in Heaven,
When that longed for moment comes
And we have to say “Good night” to the world.
(1951)
Monday, February 28, 2005
Proclaiming the Good News
I met new brother in the Lord today. A delightful passionate Scotsman living and ministering in Australia. His blog reveals an intense devotion that should stir your soul, so I encourage you to stop by and listen afresh to power of the Good News.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Dick Staub
Dick Staub writes about faith and culture and usually has some interesting perspectives. On his latest update, he references Hedgehog Review. The articles provide a thoughtful analysis of various cultural challenges.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Robert Bellah and the Unitarian Universalists
When I was in graduate school, Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart profoundly affected my understanding of church in America. Bellah and his team of researchers suggestion that individualism is at the heart of American worship. And unfortanately, this individualism precedes community and often overwhelms any movement toward community.
I just finished reading a fascinating talk he delivered to the Unitarian Universalists in 1998: Unitarian Universalism in Societal Perspective. He argues that social dissent is at the heart of American religion, making Baptists and Unitarian Universalists both seperate strains in the grand untradition of dissent. His talk is challenging and critizuing the UU for tendencies to devalue notiions that provide a framework for developing true community. I think all churches could benefit from reading his lecture. Along the way, he references Mark Lilla who makes the case that the sixties social sexual revolution and the eighties economic boon are both sides of the same coin.
He says:
And again:
For those willing to wrestle with Bellah's ideas, I think he raises many valid challenges that face the contemporary church and society. We must seriously consider how our actions (praxis) is derived from ideas or dotrines (doxis) that may lead to unrestrained individualism--even when we are proclaiming the value of community. For Bellah, he finds hope of connecting with the sacraments, the communion of the saints and in a social ontology rooted in Trinitarian theology.
I just finished reading a fascinating talk he delivered to the Unitarian Universalists in 1998: Unitarian Universalism in Societal Perspective. He argues that social dissent is at the heart of American religion, making Baptists and Unitarian Universalists both seperate strains in the grand untradition of dissent. His talk is challenging and critizuing the UU for tendencies to devalue notiions that provide a framework for developing true community. I think all churches could benefit from reading his lecture. Along the way, he references Mark Lilla who makes the case that the sixties social sexual revolution and the eighties economic boon are both sides of the same coin.
He says:
The revolution of the sixties did not come from nowhere. I would argue that it was another stage in the unfolding of what I have already described as our deepest common value, respect for the individual conscience, the individual person, a respect that is rooted in our dominant religious tradition of dissenting Protestantism
And again:
I called to mind the dissenting tradition. What was so important about the Baptists, and other sectarians such as the Quakers, was the absolute centrality of religious freedom, of the sacredness of individual conscience in matters of religious belief. We generally think of religious freedom as one of many kinds of freedom, many kinds of human rights, first voiced in the European Enlightenment, and echoing around the world ever since. But Georg Jellinek, Max Weber’s friend, and, on these matters, his teacher, published a book in 1895 called Die Erklärung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte, translated into English in 1901 as The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens, which argued that the ultimate source of all modern notions of human rights is to be found in the radical sects of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the Quakers and Baptists. Of this development Weber writes, “Thus the consistent sect gives rise to an inalienable personal right of the governed as against any power, whether political, hierocratic or patriarchal. Such freedom of conscience may be the oldest Right of Man—as Jellinek has argued convincingly, at any rate it is the most basic Right of Man because it comprises all ethically conditioned action and guarantees freedom from compulsion, especially from the power of the state. In this sense the concept was as unknown to antiquity and the Middle Ages as it was to Rousseau. . . ” Weber then goes on to say that the other Rights of Man were later joined to this basic right, “especially the right to pursue one’s own economic interests, which includes the inviolability of individual property, the freedom of contract, and vocational choice.” (1978:1209) So, almost from the beginning the sacredness of conscience, of the individual person was linked to “the right to pursue one’s own economic interests.” Remember that Weber locates the famous “Protestant ethic” in the intersection of Calvinism and sectarianism out of which our own dissenting tradition comes. Freedom of conscience and freedom of enterprise are more closely, even genealogically, linked than many of us would like to believe. As I hope to show, they are both expressions of an underlying ontological individualism.
For those willing to wrestle with Bellah's ideas, I think he raises many valid challenges that face the contemporary church and society. We must seriously consider how our actions (praxis) is derived from ideas or dotrines (doxis) that may lead to unrestrained individualism--even when we are proclaiming the value of community. For Bellah, he finds hope of connecting with the sacraments, the communion of the saints and in a social ontology rooted in Trinitarian theology.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Chronic Illness
Chronic illness can crush the human spirit and yet in the mystery of grace it can also make it flower. Some people who have endured unbearable anguish still blossom in radiant beauty. If you want to listen to the struggles of those facing chronic hep C or interact with them or even connect them with others facing chronic illness, here are two blogs worth visiting: Buzz Trexler and Debbie .
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Homeward Bound
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
From The Stolen Child by WB Yeats
The world is weary of weeping and war: nation against nation and even brother against brother. Our news baptizes us in the causalities of multiple wars in multiple lands. From the violent birth of a nation in Iraq to the ongoing genocide of a people in Dafur: death and destruction are the only life many people know. And in some strange irony, we Americans complete the cycle by entertaining ourselves through an endless parade of murder mysteries.
Yeats seems to be right, “the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” Some would escape to fairylands and beyond, hoping to enjoy some tiny bit of happiness in this evil infested planet.
Pain, suffering, war and death characterize life for many people in this world. We may protest wars and we may voice our opposition to tyrant leaders (either at home or abroad) but that does not change the reality for millions of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers who will lay down tonight in terror and grief over the unending real pain in this world.
How can we ever really face the magnitude of suffering and evil in this world? Some may choose to ignore it for as long as possible, living a life of hedonistic delight as the world burns around them. Others may deny any ultimate significance to the material world, suggesting it is all an illusion or all subject to destruction anyway. One popular approach is to suggest that everything is some part of divine life: of course, this carries with it the disturbing notion that evil and good are equally divine.
Is it possible things are not the way they are supposed to be? Is it possible the longing we have in our hearts for goodness and truth and beauty are intuitive longings for a world that might have been or might still be?
Today is the beginning of the second great cycle in the Christian year known as Lent-Easter-Pentecost. It is a time of honestly facing the evil in our world but it is also about facing the possibility of becoming humans who know the reality of giving and receiving love.
In the Lenten journey, we face the disturbing truth that the problem of evil in this world is a human problem. When we despair over the tyranny of evil in faraway places, we must not ignore the reality of that evil within. Think of the anger we have felt at times to other people in the workplace, on the highway, or in the community. Someone might say, “But my anger is justified. Did you see what they did to me?” Do not all perpetrators of evil feel justified in their actions?
“Of course, some innocents will die, but this is the only way to maintain peace and order.”
“They deserved to die for what they did to me!”
And on and on the excuses for evil continue. During Lent, we honestly face this propensity toward evil within.
The strange and often misunderstood story of Jesus, suggests that God does not ignore evil but takes the pain and power of it onto Himself. Jesus comes to tell Israel that their God has come to dwell among them in a way they never could have imagined. He will become the suffering servant. He will take the pain and hurt and very real anguish of this evil world onto Himself. In so doing, He will make a way for humans to become truly human: truly beings shaped and fully revealed in the beauty of perfect love.
The Lenten journey is about facing the real hope offering in this action and message of Jesus.
I invite you to take this Lenten journey with me: this means facing and confronting our own personal failings and attitudes of anger and violence and unforgiveness. And yet at the same time, it means looking with hope to Jesus whose life makes that stunning proclamation that God has taken the pain and evil in this world including my life onto Himself, freeing me to become a lover. This amazing good news frees me to embrace the suffering persons around me—even if that means I may suffer in the process.
Blessings on your journey.
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
From The Stolen Child by WB Yeats
The world is weary of weeping and war: nation against nation and even brother against brother. Our news baptizes us in the causalities of multiple wars in multiple lands. From the violent birth of a nation in Iraq to the ongoing genocide of a people in Dafur: death and destruction are the only life many people know. And in some strange irony, we Americans complete the cycle by entertaining ourselves through an endless parade of murder mysteries.
Yeats seems to be right, “the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” Some would escape to fairylands and beyond, hoping to enjoy some tiny bit of happiness in this evil infested planet.
Pain, suffering, war and death characterize life for many people in this world. We may protest wars and we may voice our opposition to tyrant leaders (either at home or abroad) but that does not change the reality for millions of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers who will lay down tonight in terror and grief over the unending real pain in this world.
How can we ever really face the magnitude of suffering and evil in this world? Some may choose to ignore it for as long as possible, living a life of hedonistic delight as the world burns around them. Others may deny any ultimate significance to the material world, suggesting it is all an illusion or all subject to destruction anyway. One popular approach is to suggest that everything is some part of divine life: of course, this carries with it the disturbing notion that evil and good are equally divine.
Is it possible things are not the way they are supposed to be? Is it possible the longing we have in our hearts for goodness and truth and beauty are intuitive longings for a world that might have been or might still be?
Today is the beginning of the second great cycle in the Christian year known as Lent-Easter-Pentecost. It is a time of honestly facing the evil in our world but it is also about facing the possibility of becoming humans who know the reality of giving and receiving love.
In the Lenten journey, we face the disturbing truth that the problem of evil in this world is a human problem. When we despair over the tyranny of evil in faraway places, we must not ignore the reality of that evil within. Think of the anger we have felt at times to other people in the workplace, on the highway, or in the community. Someone might say, “But my anger is justified. Did you see what they did to me?” Do not all perpetrators of evil feel justified in their actions?
“Of course, some innocents will die, but this is the only way to maintain peace and order.”
“They deserved to die for what they did to me!”
And on and on the excuses for evil continue. During Lent, we honestly face this propensity toward evil within.
The strange and often misunderstood story of Jesus, suggests that God does not ignore evil but takes the pain and power of it onto Himself. Jesus comes to tell Israel that their God has come to dwell among them in a way they never could have imagined. He will become the suffering servant. He will take the pain and hurt and very real anguish of this evil world onto Himself. In so doing, He will make a way for humans to become truly human: truly beings shaped and fully revealed in the beauty of perfect love.
The Lenten journey is about facing the real hope offering in this action and message of Jesus.
I invite you to take this Lenten journey with me: this means facing and confronting our own personal failings and attitudes of anger and violence and unforgiveness. And yet at the same time, it means looking with hope to Jesus whose life makes that stunning proclamation that God has taken the pain and evil in this world including my life onto Himself, freeing me to become a lover. This amazing good news frees me to embrace the suffering persons around me—even if that means I may suffer in the process.
Blessings on your journey.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Adam and Eve
I recently posted a story on Cain and Abel. Working backward, here is a retelling of Adam and Eve. For churches following a Western liturgical calendar, Lent begins next week. This story is helpful for reflection as we will begin completating the reversing of this tragic tale. Note: Scriptures references intertwine this story and they are from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.
The story begins in a garden. This is appropriate because gardens are the place of beginnings.
In the middle of the place of beginnings, is adama literally “ruddy man.” We call him Adam.
And he is facing a dilemma. Who can he trust? Abba or the snake?
Can he rely on Abba’s Word? Can he rest in Abba’s kindness and goodness and love?
Ah the walks. The walks in the cool of the evening. As long as he can remember, Adam has spent his evenings walking alongside Abba, discussing his day and listening to Abba’s stories. Abba loves to tell stories. In fact, Abba’s stories that Adam has learned all that he knows.
Abba taught him about the animals. Abba told him funny animal stories. Abba told him how know and guide and watch the animals. Through Abba’s kindness, Adam named all the animals—rightly proclaiming the essence of who they were created to be.
Abba gave him Eve. It had been so long, and so glorious, and so fulfilling. She was his companion, his friend, his lover. She was his second set of eyes. Adam could not even imagine what life was like before Eve.
He tried and all he could remember were the stories. The stories from before the garden. Before the animals. Before the trees and flowers. Before the land and water. Before. Before. Before.
Adam remembers the stories before anything existed—only love within the Godhead. Abba dwelled in loving communion with the Father and Spirit. This loving, joyful, beautiful communion of persons is known as God. From the superabundance of this love, a decision was made to create someone who could share in the wonder of this unquenchable, unending love: but first a place for the new one.
Today when parents are expecting a newborn, they prepare a place, a nursery. Everything has to be just perfect. Colors of the room. Bed. Music. Story books. And everything a baby will need to grow and develop and become what they are. God creates such a place.
Adam rests in the expectation of the seventh day, contemplating the endless rest of this loving God. In their nightly talks, Abba spoke often of this loving communion, revealing to Adam his destiny to live and move and rest in the embrace of such love. Oh the stories Abba told. They were more than Adam could ever recount. Yet each story filled Adam with wonder and delight and anticipation. Everything Adam knew, his knew through the gentle guidance of Abba.
Now the question. Can Abba be trusted? The snake says otherwise. Pointing to Adam’s gleaming countenance, the snake reminds Adam of his own glory. He reveals secrets and mysteries Adam did not know. He invites Adam to enjoy a feast like he never tasted, power beyond his wildest imaginations and a court of angels to protect and praise Adam all day long. The snake questioned Abbas reliability. Abbas stories are only stories. Stories meant to control Adam: to keep him from his real destiny, his real throne, his proper place beside Abba.
The more Adam thought about the snakes’ song, the foggier his thoughts became. Abbas stories faded. And Adam grew angry. This deception cannot last one moment longer!
Adam takes what Abba did not give. He eats what Abba forbade. He believes what Abba denied.
Instantly, the skies darkened and shriek entered into the very fiber of creation. All things trembled in pain. All things began to die. Everything goes black and Adam dies. What seems like an eternity passes and Adam opens his eyes, the light is gone. Eve’s glory has departed. She no longer shimmers with the radiant light. Her body looks different. Odd. Almost like an animals’ hide. Adam looks down and realizes he looks like an animal as well.
In his very core, Adam feels something he has never known before--fear. Unbridled terror. And shame. Adam and Eve began running and running and running. In a moment, they’ve destroyed Abba’s glorious creation. In an act of pride, they sought to replace Abba and know realize the grotesque results of their impudence, their selfishness, their rebellion.
As they run in terror, they cry out in shame and bathe the wounded earth in their tears. Everything seems to cry with them. The world it coming undone. In the midst of the chaos, they hear him coming. Abba is here.
In the mystery of his relentless love, Abba offers hope. Evil will be vanquished. The serpent will be crushed. And the very curse that now inhabits Adam and Eve will become the means of drawing them back to him. And God covers these animal bodies: these darkened bodies that no longer shine with the light of a pure soul. He covers them with shed blood and offers life in their death.
The story begins in a garden. This is appropriate because gardens are the place of beginnings.
In the middle of the place of beginnings, is adama literally “ruddy man.” We call him Adam.
And he is facing a dilemma. Who can he trust? Abba or the snake?
Can he rely on Abba’s Word? Can he rest in Abba’s kindness and goodness and love?
Ah the walks. The walks in the cool of the evening. As long as he can remember, Adam has spent his evenings walking alongside Abba, discussing his day and listening to Abba’s stories. Abba loves to tell stories. In fact, Abba’s stories that Adam has learned all that he knows.
Abba taught him about the animals. Abba told him funny animal stories. Abba told him how know and guide and watch the animals. Through Abba’s kindness, Adam named all the animals—rightly proclaiming the essence of who they were created to be.
Abba gave him Eve. It had been so long, and so glorious, and so fulfilling. She was his companion, his friend, his lover. She was his second set of eyes. Adam could not even imagine what life was like before Eve.
He tried and all he could remember were the stories. The stories from before the garden. Before the animals. Before the trees and flowers. Before the land and water. Before. Before. Before.
Adam remembers the stories before anything existed—only love within the Godhead. Abba dwelled in loving communion with the Father and Spirit. This loving, joyful, beautiful communion of persons is known as God. From the superabundance of this love, a decision was made to create someone who could share in the wonder of this unquenchable, unending love: but first a place for the new one.
Today when parents are expecting a newborn, they prepare a place, a nursery. Everything has to be just perfect. Colors of the room. Bed. Music. Story books. And everything a baby will need to grow and develop and become what they are. God creates such a place.
Genesis 1
1:1 Heaven and Earth
First this: God created the Heavens and Earth — all you see, all you don't see. 2 Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
3 God spoke: "Light!"And light appeared. 4 God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. 5 God named the light Day,he named the dark Night.It was evening, it was morning — Day One.
6 God spoke: "Sky! In the middle of the waters;separate water from water!" 7 God made sky. He separated the water under sky from the water above sky.And there it was: 8 he named sky the Heavens;It was evening, it was morning — Day Two.
9 God spoke: "Separate!Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;Land, appear!"And there it was. 10 God named the land Earth.He named the pooled water Ocean.God saw that it was good.
11 God spoke: "Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants,Every sort of fruit-bearing tree."And there it was. 12 Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,all varieties,And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.God saw that it was good. 13 It was evening, it was morning — Day Three.
14 God spoke: "Lights! Come out!Shine in Heaven's sky!Separate Day from Night.Mark seasons and days and years, 15 Lights in Heaven's sky to give light to Earth."And there it was.
16 God made two big lights, the larger to take charge of Day, The smaller to be in charge of Night;and he made the stars. 17 God placed them in the heavenly sky to light up Earth 18 And oversee Day and Night,to separate light and dark. God saw that it was good. 19 It was evening, it was morning — Day Four.
20 God spoke: "Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!" 21 God created the huge whales,all the swarm of life in the waters,And every kind and species of flying birds.God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!Birds, reproduce on Earth!" 23 It was evening, it was morning — Day Five.
24 God spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:cattle and reptiles and wild animals — all kinds." And there it was: 25 wild animals of every kind,Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug. God saw that it was good.
26 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,the birds in the air, the cattle,And, yes, Earth itself,and every animal that moves on the face of Earth." 27 God created human beings;he created them godlike,Reflecting God's nature.He created them male and female. 28 God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."
29 Then God said, "I've given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,given them to you for food. 30 To all animals and all birds,everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food."And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning — Day Six.
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Adam rests in the expectation of the seventh day, contemplating the endless rest of this loving God. In their nightly talks, Abba spoke often of this loving communion, revealing to Adam his destiny to live and move and rest in the embrace of such love. Oh the stories Abba told. They were more than Adam could ever recount. Yet each story filled Adam with wonder and delight and anticipation. Everything Adam knew, his knew through the gentle guidance of Abba.
Now the question. Can Abba be trusted? The snake says otherwise. Pointing to Adam’s gleaming countenance, the snake reminds Adam of his own glory. He reveals secrets and mysteries Adam did not know. He invites Adam to enjoy a feast like he never tasted, power beyond his wildest imaginations and a court of angels to protect and praise Adam all day long. The snake questioned Abbas reliability. Abbas stories are only stories. Stories meant to control Adam: to keep him from his real destiny, his real throne, his proper place beside Abba.
The more Adam thought about the snakes’ song, the foggier his thoughts became. Abbas stories faded. And Adam grew angry. This deception cannot last one moment longer!
Adam takes what Abba did not give. He eats what Abba forbade. He believes what Abba denied.
Instantly, the skies darkened and shriek entered into the very fiber of creation. All things trembled in pain. All things began to die. Everything goes black and Adam dies. What seems like an eternity passes and Adam opens his eyes, the light is gone. Eve’s glory has departed. She no longer shimmers with the radiant light. Her body looks different. Odd. Almost like an animals’ hide. Adam looks down and realizes he looks like an animal as well.
In his very core, Adam feels something he has never known before--fear. Unbridled terror. And shame. Adam and Eve began running and running and running. In a moment, they’ve destroyed Abba’s glorious creation. In an act of pride, they sought to replace Abba and know realize the grotesque results of their impudence, their selfishness, their rebellion.
As they run in terror, they cry out in shame and bathe the wounded earth in their tears. Everything seems to cry with them. The world it coming undone. In the midst of the chaos, they hear him coming. Abba is here.
Genesis 3:9-19
9 GOD called to the Man: "Where are you?"
10 He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid."
11 GOD said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?"
12 The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it."
13 GOD said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
14 GOD told the serpent:
"Because you've done this, you're cursed,cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. 15 I'm declaring war between you and the Woman,between your offspring and hers.He'll wound your head,you'll wound his heel."
16 He told the Woman:
"I'll multiply your pains in childbirth;you'll give birth to your babies in pain.You'll want to please your husband,but he'll lord it over you."
17 He told the Man:
"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from,'Don't eat from this tree,'The very ground is cursed because of you;getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;you'll be working in pain all your life long. 18 The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, 19 sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
In the mystery of his relentless love, Abba offers hope. Evil will be vanquished. The serpent will be crushed. And the very curse that now inhabits Adam and Eve will become the means of drawing them back to him. And God covers these animal bodies: these darkened bodies that no longer shine with the light of a pure soul. He covers them with shed blood and offers life in their death.
Genesis 3:21-4:1
21 GOD made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.
22 GOD said, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never — this cannot happen!"
23 So GOD expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they'd been made. 24 He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Friday, February 04, 2005
Called Out Community
My friends Milton Stanley and Buzz Trexler have been discussing the nature of the church community, and how our evangelism is more than just hurling invectives at the "lost" outside the community of Christ. Good word brothers! Thanks!
Some writers like Ian Bradley have suggested, we are building outposts of heaven. Our churches gather in good times and bad. We gather in birth and death; in joy and sadness; and sometimes in fear and trembling. We gather to eat, to argue, to pray, to cry, to hope, to yearn, to love. We may do other things but one thing we are compelled to do is gather.
And in gathering we become, as Robert Bellah has reminded us, a "community of memory." But not simply a sentimental common memory like the "good old days." This memory is a real and living Presence. We gather in the living and present memory of our Lord. By His gentle and sometimes fiery grace, the rhythms of our lives harmonize in a symphony of love shining heaven's light into this darkened world.
Augustine puts it differently. He says that we are a community of friends. This community is ever expanding transforming society into a world a friends who gather in the presence of the ever living Savior, Redeemer and Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The inward outward movement of community is sometimes difficult to manage. We may become too inward losing sight of those outside the community, or we may become to outword focusing on the lost and dying world but losing sight of the called out community. This tension between building a loving community and reaching out beyond loving community is a dynamic tension that is always moving.
And as Chesterton points out that is one more beauty of our faith built on a cross of two planes: the horizontal and vertical. These intersecting planes remind us again and again of the wondrous paradoxical tensions of walking and living by faith.
Some writers like Ian Bradley have suggested, we are building outposts of heaven. Our churches gather in good times and bad. We gather in birth and death; in joy and sadness; and sometimes in fear and trembling. We gather to eat, to argue, to pray, to cry, to hope, to yearn, to love. We may do other things but one thing we are compelled to do is gather.
And in gathering we become, as Robert Bellah has reminded us, a "community of memory." But not simply a sentimental common memory like the "good old days." This memory is a real and living Presence. We gather in the living and present memory of our Lord. By His gentle and sometimes fiery grace, the rhythms of our lives harmonize in a symphony of love shining heaven's light into this darkened world.
Augustine puts it differently. He says that we are a community of friends. This community is ever expanding transforming society into a world a friends who gather in the presence of the ever living Savior, Redeemer and Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The inward outward movement of community is sometimes difficult to manage. We may become too inward losing sight of those outside the community, or we may become to outword focusing on the lost and dying world but losing sight of the called out community. This tension between building a loving community and reaching out beyond loving community is a dynamic tension that is always moving.
And as Chesterton points out that is one more beauty of our faith built on a cross of two planes: the horizontal and vertical. These intersecting planes remind us again and again of the wondrous paradoxical tensions of walking and living by faith.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Posting Again
Now that I've finally caught my breath, maybe I can start posting a few tidbits again. I have a variety of thoughts I need to put on paper. Right at the end of the old year and the start of the new, I was running (or driving) all across the country (well at least the Southeast). We went to Charlotte for Reggie White's funeral which was profoundly moving and hopefully I can write about it soon; then I headed down to Louisianna for a few days of NT Wright. Splendid fellow. Great thinker and nice person to boot! Then I came back just in time for a co-hort at the New City Community.
I was a bit drained and didn't feel well but Darrell Johnson warmed me with his grace-filled pastor's heart. Along the way, I've been thumbsucking Maximas the Confessor's On The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ. What a treasure! I think the modern church misses so much when we ignore so many Christian writers simply because they are no longer living. Chesterton reminds us that tradition is teh democracy of the dead. If we really are democratic thinkers, we'll listen to the dead as well as the living.
Finally. I finally discovered Czelaw Milosz. Where have I been? As usual, probably wasting time on the Internet instead of reading grand writers and thinkers. He is a delight. I want to insert of few of his poems in this blog, but here's a little today:
Veni Creator
Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the staircase of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church
lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me--after all I have some decency--
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.
Berkeley 1961
I was a bit drained and didn't feel well but Darrell Johnson warmed me with his grace-filled pastor's heart. Along the way, I've been thumbsucking Maximas the Confessor's On The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ. What a treasure! I think the modern church misses so much when we ignore so many Christian writers simply because they are no longer living. Chesterton reminds us that tradition is teh democracy of the dead. If we really are democratic thinkers, we'll listen to the dead as well as the living.
Finally. I finally discovered Czelaw Milosz. Where have I been? As usual, probably wasting time on the Internet instead of reading grand writers and thinkers. He is a delight. I want to insert of few of his poems in this blog, but here's a little today:
Veni Creator
Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the staircase of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church
lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me--after all I have some decency--
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.
Berkeley 1961
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Cain and Abel
Our church is currently telling the stories of the Old Testament. Today I wrote up a fictionalized account of Cain and Abel. While I tried to remain true to the spirit of the tale, I did fill places with my imagination. If anyone is interested, I thought I'd post something from it:
In the shadows, evil lurks. Watching. Simmering. Waiting for the right moment to pounce.
It started out as a day among days. A light autumn breeze stirred through the orchards and sweet apple scents surrounded the morning travelers. Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were climbing the mountain for their annual feast of thanksgiving. The late harvest sun shined through the trees and the red seemed more red, the greens seemed more green: everything pulsated with life and possibility.
Atop the mountain they set up camp and each person prepared for their part in the feast. This year was to be special. It was the first year that Cain and Abel would approach Abba as young men. Before they had always watched Adam as he set up an altar of worship. They had listened as Adam retold the story of Creation and the wondrous stories of and from Abba. They grieved with Adam as he told of his own profound rebellion and failure, but rejoiced as he told of Abba’s loving-kindness. Then he would pause in the story and explain that every breath is but a gift from Abba. And though he had nothing of value to offer Abba, he would express his profound gratefulness for Abba’s love in gifts of worship. Cain and Abel would watch in amazement as Adam place the gifts on the altar and fire from heaven consumed them. It was as though Abba had kissed the earth in his love.
But this year Cain and Abel would approach the altar as young men. Instead of approaching through Adam, they would bring their own gifts of thanksgiving.
Cain worked the soil and this year his harvest was particularly grand. The orchards overflowed with apples and pears and peaches and cherries. The ground produced a stunning spread of tomatoes and corn and carrots and onions and more. This exceeding harvest pleased Cain. He had worked the fields day and night, and his efforts had paid off. He harvested more than enough food to meet his obligation for the great feast. Cain chose a sample fruits and vegetables to offer Abba and prepared to display his wares at the great feast.
Abel cared for the flocks. Like a father, he came to love each of the animals like his own children. Many a night, Abel would sit alone on the hilltop making up songs for his flocks. Abel was grateful to Abba for allowing him to care for the animals and when time came for the feast, Abel choose the finest, firstborn from his flock. Abel loved this sheep more than any man has loved his pet. And in some sense by offering this sheep, he could express how much more how loved and was thankful to Abba for his loving-kindness.
When time came for Cain and Abel to approach the altar, Cain led the way. He proudly displayed this fine bounty. “I am thankful that you have given me such ingenuity. For I have worked long and worked late and have produced a most glorious harvest of fruits and vegetables. The selection before you today is just a sample of the fine harvest I’ve produced in the orchards and fields below.” After his speech, Cain sat down and awaited Abel.
But Abel didn’t say much. Abel simply said, “I give the best but it is still not good enough. You are greater than all I can imagine and I am grateful for your love and kindness. Please have mercy and accept this precious lamb as a token of my unending love for you.”
Before Abel could even sit down, fire shot down from heaven and kissed the gift he brought. Abba delighted in such faith and readily expressed his pleasure.
But Cain was puzzled. His fruits and vegetables were more glorious than anything Abel brought but Abba almost seemed to snub him.
From the shadows, a cloud descended on him and he stumbled off the mountain in frustration and anger.
He had been humiliated in front of Abel and Adam and Eve. His fine selection of fruits and vegetables had been virtually ignored. Shamed and alone, dark thoughts began to torture Cain. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Abel was always the favored. Adam and Even had always praised everything Abel did while virtually ignoring his own efforts. Cain was a victim. He had been rejected all his life and this latest rejection was just a very public demonstration of what everyone thought. No one, not even Abba, realized his worth. No one, not even Abba, realized how hard he worked to benefit everyone else.
Deep into the night, Cain stared up into the dark sky and wondered if Abba was really that good after all. Maybe he had duped everyone. Cain was frustrated, confused and angry. In the middle of his torments, a voice. Abba comes to comfort and confront. “Cain, Cain. Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? The shadow of darkness is waiting to take you. But it doesn’t have you. You can still do right and your joy will return.”
In his shame, Cain cried, “Oh God. Forgive me. You are right. I allowed the darkness to choke me, but when I arise tomorrow things will be different.”
But they weren’t different. When Cain awoke, the conversation with Abba had slipped into the stream of forgotten dreams. A cloud covered his heart and mind. And all he could think about was how he had been wronged.
Stumbling from bed, he went to face the day and instead found Abel. Anger simmered and yet hid. Abel said, “Come with me and let us return to the mountain.” For Abel was deeply concerned for Cain. Yet Cain interpreted this as Abel seeking to embarrass him yet once again. He followed quietly behind as Abel described the events of the previous day.
Suddenly the darkness came out of the shadows. Cain leaped. Abel fell. And the blood cried out. In a terrified stupor, Cain realized what he had done and ran. He ran and ran and ran. He tried to run from himself. But could not escape the dark terror of his deed.
In the shadows the voice called, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I’m not my brother’s keeper. How should I know?”
“Even now your brother’s blood is crying. Calling out from the ground. You’ve planted curses and you’ll reap curses. Your field of plenty will rot on the vine as blood cries out for vengeance. Wherever you go, the land will recognize and reject you. From now on you’ll wander the earth without a home, without a place.”
Even as the Lord God spoke, Cain was coming undone. “It’s too much. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it. The angry world knows my name and will consume me.”
“No Cain. Anyone who kills you will be repaid 7 times.” And with that promise Abba marked him for protection and left him to wander the world alone.
Traveling east, Cain stumbled into the waiting darkness. He married. Had a family. Built a city. And his son had sons. And they had sons. And they had sons. From his people came nomads, musicians, and blacksmiths. They were a people marked in blood. One day, his great grandson Lamech, with blood on his hands, proclaimed to his wives:
I killed a man for wounding me, a young man who attacked me. If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it's seventy-seven!
And the seeds of destruction continued to fall on the ground.
In the shadows, evil lurks. Watching. Simmering. Waiting for the right moment to pounce.
It started out as a day among days. A light autumn breeze stirred through the orchards and sweet apple scents surrounded the morning travelers. Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were climbing the mountain for their annual feast of thanksgiving. The late harvest sun shined through the trees and the red seemed more red, the greens seemed more green: everything pulsated with life and possibility.
Atop the mountain they set up camp and each person prepared for their part in the feast. This year was to be special. It was the first year that Cain and Abel would approach Abba as young men. Before they had always watched Adam as he set up an altar of worship. They had listened as Adam retold the story of Creation and the wondrous stories of and from Abba. They grieved with Adam as he told of his own profound rebellion and failure, but rejoiced as he told of Abba’s loving-kindness. Then he would pause in the story and explain that every breath is but a gift from Abba. And though he had nothing of value to offer Abba, he would express his profound gratefulness for Abba’s love in gifts of worship. Cain and Abel would watch in amazement as Adam place the gifts on the altar and fire from heaven consumed them. It was as though Abba had kissed the earth in his love.
But this year Cain and Abel would approach the altar as young men. Instead of approaching through Adam, they would bring their own gifts of thanksgiving.
Cain worked the soil and this year his harvest was particularly grand. The orchards overflowed with apples and pears and peaches and cherries. The ground produced a stunning spread of tomatoes and corn and carrots and onions and more. This exceeding harvest pleased Cain. He had worked the fields day and night, and his efforts had paid off. He harvested more than enough food to meet his obligation for the great feast. Cain chose a sample fruits and vegetables to offer Abba and prepared to display his wares at the great feast.
Abel cared for the flocks. Like a father, he came to love each of the animals like his own children. Many a night, Abel would sit alone on the hilltop making up songs for his flocks. Abel was grateful to Abba for allowing him to care for the animals and when time came for the feast, Abel choose the finest, firstborn from his flock. Abel loved this sheep more than any man has loved his pet. And in some sense by offering this sheep, he could express how much more how loved and was thankful to Abba for his loving-kindness.
When time came for Cain and Abel to approach the altar, Cain led the way. He proudly displayed this fine bounty. “I am thankful that you have given me such ingenuity. For I have worked long and worked late and have produced a most glorious harvest of fruits and vegetables. The selection before you today is just a sample of the fine harvest I’ve produced in the orchards and fields below.” After his speech, Cain sat down and awaited Abel.
But Abel didn’t say much. Abel simply said, “I give the best but it is still not good enough. You are greater than all I can imagine and I am grateful for your love and kindness. Please have mercy and accept this precious lamb as a token of my unending love for you.”
Before Abel could even sit down, fire shot down from heaven and kissed the gift he brought. Abba delighted in such faith and readily expressed his pleasure.
But Cain was puzzled. His fruits and vegetables were more glorious than anything Abel brought but Abba almost seemed to snub him.
From the shadows, a cloud descended on him and he stumbled off the mountain in frustration and anger.
He had been humiliated in front of Abel and Adam and Eve. His fine selection of fruits and vegetables had been virtually ignored. Shamed and alone, dark thoughts began to torture Cain. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Abel was always the favored. Adam and Even had always praised everything Abel did while virtually ignoring his own efforts. Cain was a victim. He had been rejected all his life and this latest rejection was just a very public demonstration of what everyone thought. No one, not even Abba, realized his worth. No one, not even Abba, realized how hard he worked to benefit everyone else.
Deep into the night, Cain stared up into the dark sky and wondered if Abba was really that good after all. Maybe he had duped everyone. Cain was frustrated, confused and angry. In the middle of his torments, a voice. Abba comes to comfort and confront. “Cain, Cain. Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? The shadow of darkness is waiting to take you. But it doesn’t have you. You can still do right and your joy will return.”
In his shame, Cain cried, “Oh God. Forgive me. You are right. I allowed the darkness to choke me, but when I arise tomorrow things will be different.”
But they weren’t different. When Cain awoke, the conversation with Abba had slipped into the stream of forgotten dreams. A cloud covered his heart and mind. And all he could think about was how he had been wronged.
Stumbling from bed, he went to face the day and instead found Abel. Anger simmered and yet hid. Abel said, “Come with me and let us return to the mountain.” For Abel was deeply concerned for Cain. Yet Cain interpreted this as Abel seeking to embarrass him yet once again. He followed quietly behind as Abel described the events of the previous day.
Suddenly the darkness came out of the shadows. Cain leaped. Abel fell. And the blood cried out. In a terrified stupor, Cain realized what he had done and ran. He ran and ran and ran. He tried to run from himself. But could not escape the dark terror of his deed.
In the shadows the voice called, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I’m not my brother’s keeper. How should I know?”
“Even now your brother’s blood is crying. Calling out from the ground. You’ve planted curses and you’ll reap curses. Your field of plenty will rot on the vine as blood cries out for vengeance. Wherever you go, the land will recognize and reject you. From now on you’ll wander the earth without a home, without a place.”
Even as the Lord God spoke, Cain was coming undone. “It’s too much. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it. The angry world knows my name and will consume me.”
“No Cain. Anyone who kills you will be repaid 7 times.” And with that promise Abba marked him for protection and left him to wander the world alone.
Traveling east, Cain stumbled into the waiting darkness. He married. Had a family. Built a city. And his son had sons. And they had sons. And they had sons. From his people came nomads, musicians, and blacksmiths. They were a people marked in blood. One day, his great grandson Lamech, with blood on his hands, proclaimed to his wives:
I killed a man for wounding me, a young man who attacked me. If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it's seventy-seven!
And the seeds of destruction continued to fall on the ground.
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