Hands & Feet

I have had the unexpected pleasure of reconnecting lately in two different situations with some very old friends. It is surprising and wonderful to talk to someone from 25 years ago. Not only is it a delight to reconnect, but the entire encounter is a powerful reminder of how things were, how stunningly naive I was, and how much things have grown and changed since then. I feel older, but also a bit wiser.

When I talk to these folks though, inevitably one of the first questions is, So what are you up to these days? Given that vocationally I wear at least four hats at any given time, it feels like there is no short answer to that question. And inevitably, I end up tripping over my words as I try to explain the different stuff I am so excited about.

However, as I read last night before going to sleep, I received a subtle "THAT'S it" when I read these words:

Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, wrote, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which God is to bless people now.”

My weeks are occupied with teaching, consulting, writing and strategic planning, and each of those projects use a different email address. But what they really add up to is one thing; ultimately, I hope that I can equip others a little bit in being "Jesus with skin on" in the world today. As Teresa of Avila said so many centuries ago, we are the hands and feet of Jesus.

So when I am leading 70 high school students in a weekly dialogue about the Gospel of Mark, I pray they are motivated to carry on the ministry of Christ in the world, incarnating his love and mercy and selfless service.

When I write articles, mostly about youth ministry, I pray that my words can assist a few youthworkers in persevering past the statistical 2.5 years of the average lifespan of a youthworker, carrying on as a faithful mentor to their own group of disciples.

When I work with a pastors in recruiting more volunteers or shaping three-year goals, it is my hope that they will feel hopeful about how they can actually do ministry, and not just worry about it and feel buried in budgets, emails and the crisis of the week.

And finally, when I am recruiting at colleges and building networks of support for the future leaders in the kingdom, I want each person I talk to, whether they are seminary presidents or college freshmen or hard-working faculty, to know that Jesus was loving enough (and slightly crazy?) to entrust the work of His kingdom into our clumsy hands.

As I read recently, "Lord, we are forever grateful that you do not want to change the world without us. May we become the church you dream of."

I reveled in Teresa of Avila's simple words, and the encouragement only mounted as I read Isaiah 25 and 26:

In that day the people will proclaim,

“This is our God!

We trusted in him, and he saved us!

This is the Lord, in whom we trusted.

Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!” (25:9)

7 But for those who are righteous,

the way is not steep and rough.

You are a God who does what is right,

and you smooth out the path ahead of them.

8 Lord, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws;

our heart’s desire is to glorify your name.

9 All night long I search for you;

in the morning I earnestly seek for God. (26:7-9)

As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:1, Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. It is remarkable to me that God chooses to work through us, nincompoops that we are. But since he has entrusted such things to us, let us rise to the challenge, with His Spirit filling us. How good is our God.

Slow Work

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — ​and that it may take a very long time. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.”

Unfailing

As you start your day:

Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;

your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,

your justice like the ocean depths.

You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.

How precious is your unfailing love, O God!

All humanity finds shelter

in the shadow of your wings.

You feed them from the abundance of your own house,

letting them drink from your river of delights.

For you are the fountain of life,

the light by which we see.

Pour out your unfailing love on those who love you;

give justice to those with honest hearts. (Psalm 36:5-10, NLT)

Profound

“The way to Christ is first through humility, second through humility, third through humility. If humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, if it is not before us to focus on, if it is not beside us to lean upon, if it is not behind us to fence us in, pride will wrench from our hand any good deed we do at the very moment we do it.” Augustine

Rain Ramblings

I ran into this quote today, by Bono of U2. For more thoughts, go here:

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean?

What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don’t let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion.

Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that’s not so easy.”

Played the Man

This quote rung my bell today.

The power of the truths expressed, and the breathtaking way Sayers crafts her sentences are both utterly stunning to me.

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--He had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it was well worthwhile.
... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 14

Active Waiting

An outstanding quote from Henri Nouwen this morning:

Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God's footsteps.

Waiting for God is an active, alert - yes, joyful - waiting. As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create a community ready to welcome him when he comes.

I pray I may embrace patience in my waiting, rather than just try to keep distracted to somehow make the time pass more quickly. As I get older, the things I wait for become much larger and deeper. I am realizing that I still must learn how to actively wait.

I Saw What I Saw

Yesterday I was riding my bike and listening to my iPod on shuffle.

Normally I just enjoy songs I know, think and pray about my day, make sure I don't get hit by drivers who don't look for cyclists...

But this day a song decided to laser in deep. You know what I mean... You're listening to a song you've heard many times before, but that day the words and the music work together to put your feelings in a blender.

The song is titled I Saw What I Saw by Sara Groves. Now viewing it as a YouTube video, I see that it was inspired by a trip she made to Rwanda. Watching the video takes me back to my Guatemala trips, and even my years with Kids' Club on the Eastside right here.

But the lyrics find me where I am right now as well, still walking through the first weeks of grief for my friend Claire. One line in particular is what is staying with me still:

I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road, cut me to the soul

>> Your pain has changed me <<
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
(what I am made of)
and what I know of love

we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution

Something on the road, touched my very soul

I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction

Something on the road, changed my world

I had breakfast with a friend this past weekend who also knew Claire very well. While this was a horrible experience, he said, he wouldn't have traded it for anything. We both agreed: the horror of walking with someone into death changes you. I am a better person because of it. As the song says, her pain has changed me. My understanding of courage, faith, love and eternity were stretched and expanded... your courage asks me what I'm afraid of ... I am now more readily touched and affected by the pain of those around me... Something on the road, touched my very soul... I am more willing to sit and listen, and not try to fix or solve.

More than anything, I am reminded that nothing else in our day-to-day grind is really that important. Stress is irrelevant. A student brought up this passage in class this morning -- oh how I love the earnest faith of high school students. It tells me what is truly real:

How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7)

Hallelujah.

Quality

I have mentioned here previously that I receive a daily passage in my email from the Henri Nouwen Society. Today's reading is downright eerie:

It is very hard to accept an early death. When friends die who are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, we may be in deep grief and miss them very much, but we are grateful that they had long lives. But when a teenager, a young adult, or a person at the height of his or her career dies, we feel a protest rising from our hearts: "Why? Why so soon? Why so young? It is unfair."

But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives. Jesus died young. St. Francis died young. St. Thérèse of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young. We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.

As I consider going back to "real life" today after the experience of the last week or so, I pause and blink. It feels daunting. But when I read this, this passage immediately came to mind:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. (Philippians 1:21-27)

As Claire's life witnessed to us, the only way we can persevere through the heavy burdens of this "transitory life" (2 Corinthians 4:18, JB Phillips version) is by doing this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

We will still be sad, we will walk with a limp... but we will move forward gently and persistently. If we are still here, it is because apparently we still have work to do. Do not deny the weight of grief on your spirit. Come to God in your brokenness and pain. You don't have to gut your way through it. He is enough. He will carry you.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Feelings and Identity

This needs no intro. Fantastic, wise, beautiful words that God used to remind me of great truth this morning. From Henri Nouwen... go to henrinouwensociety.org to sign up for daily quotes.

What We Feel Is Not Who We Are

Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings: from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.

Quiet

"Silence has two functions. The first effect of exterior silence is to develop a sense of interior peace. The second value of silence is that it provides a stillness that enables the ear of the heart to hear the God who is 'not in the whirlwind.'

The constantly blaring music, the slammed door, the ceaseless, empty chatter in the hall, the constantly harsh voice all break the peace of the heart and agitate the soul. Day after day, month after month of them thickens the walls of the mind until it becomes impossible to hear the talk within us that shows us our pain and opens our minds to the truths of life and the presence of God...

We say we do not have the time to think, but what we actually lack is the quiet to think. Yet, until we are able to have at least a little silence every day, both outside and in, both inside and out, we have no hope of coming to know either God or ourselves very well." Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, pp. 124-125.

Logic is Finite

I just read these this morning. A great balance of what it means to feed the mind and the soul:

"Every logical position ... will eventually lead into trouble, and heresy, and chaos. Every logical position is fully consistent, but coherence arises from the human mind, not God's. The human mind is finite and cannot grasp eternity, and therefore the finite mind sees the infinite as not graspable coherently. If we could grasp it all coherently, without contradiction, we would be God. The person who insists on being logical to the end winds up in a mess. I am not saying that we should not be rational. I am not anti-intellectual. I am saying that the intellect by itself is helpless to arrive at total truth.
... Kenneth L. Pike (1912-2001), Stir, Change, Create, p. 44

"Prayer without study is like a soul without a body," the rabbis say. St. Benedict clearly felt the same way... It is necessary to understand the Scriputures before it is possible to pray them. It is essential to be steeped in the Scriptures before it is possible to exude them... the idea of groundedness in the spiritual life should make us stop and think. We're all busy. We're all overscheduled. We're all trying to deal with people and projects that consume us. We're all spiritually thirsty. And, we're all responsible for filling the mind with rich ideas in order to leaven the soul. Prayer, contemplation and spiritual adulthood don't happen by themselves. We have to work at them.
... Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 115

Humility

I read this quote this morning. I was left asking myself, "How much do I conform to the world's ideas of influence and power? How much do I fear the power of evil and allow myself to be intimidated by it?"

Sit on these words. They rocked me.

What we call the meekness of Our Lord is more than an aspect of His character: it is its fundamental principle. There is nothing in it of the "inert door-mat"; it was, and is, the practice of uncompromising and unyielding love, the exposition of a new technique in dealing with evil.

I believe it to be the business of Christians, especially to-day, first to realize, and then to proclaim, this revolutionary technique as the only way to peace and justice. It won't be easy, for meekness has little "face value" compared with armaments; but, if the Cross means anything at all, it is the vindication of meekness as the most dynamic and explosive force that humanity has ever known.

... Donald O. Soper (1903-1998), Popular Fallacies about the Christian Faith, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938, p. 76
See the book at http://cqod.com/r/rs447

St Francis in Alaska

Reading Chesterton's biography of St Francis in this silent hilltop cabin as I overlook Kachemak Bay and see several glaciers. I am in awe, speechless and delighted. These quotes stand out to me:

"Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything." It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them; and they are in themselves the best working example of the idea. For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset (or a panorama of glaciers!). But there is more than this involved, and more indeed than is easily expressed in words. It is not only true that the less a man thinks of himself, the more he thinks of his good luck and of all the gifts of God." (p. 75)

Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. (p. 78)

I remind you, as I am reminded, to see the beauty in front of you. Start from zero, and rejoice.

Acceptance

I read this in the wee hours...
"If we accept God's will in life where our will does not prevail, if we accept ourselves for what we are and grow from that, if we can live simply, if we can respect others and reverence them, if we can be a trusting part of our world without having to strut around it controlling it, changing it, wrenching it to our own image and likeness, then we will have achieved 'perfect love that casts out fear' (1 John 4:18).

There will be nothing left to fear -- not God's wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control..." Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict

A Mighty Fortress

This quote rumbled through me as I read it...

"I do not find that this position, that of unbroken peacefulness and inward song, is one which we can hope to hold unassailed. It is no soft arrangement of pillows, no easy-chair. It is a fort in an enemy's country, and the foe is wise in assault and especially in surprise. And yet there can be nothing to fear, for it is not a place that we must keep, but a stronghold in which we are kept, if only, in the moment we are conscious of attack, we look "away unto our faith's Princely Leader and Perfecter, Jesus, who endured."
... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Rose from Brier [1933],
See the book at http://cqod.com/r/rs364

Silence

"Make no doubt about it, the ability to listen to another, to sit silently in the presence of God, to give sober heed, and to ponder is the nucleus of Benedictine spirituality. It may, in fact, be what is most missing in a century saturated with information but short on Gospel reflection. The Word we seek is speaking in the silence within us. Blocking it out with the static nonsense day in and day out, relinquishing the spirit of silence, numbs the Benedictine heart in a noise-polluted world." Joan Chittister

Freedom

I read this this morning, from Henri Nouwen. It rang true -- and makes me aspire to do the same. What do you think?

Jesus was truly free. His freedom was rooted in his spiritual awareness that he was the Beloved Child of God. He knew in the depth of his being that he belonged to God before he was born, that he was sent into the world to proclaim God's love, and that he would return to God after his mission was fulfilled. This knowledge gave him the freedom to speak and act without having to please the world and the power to respond to people's pains with the healing love of God.

~~~~~~~~~

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3-8)

May we live, speak, serve and love in true freedom, the way Jesus did.

Change

Today in my daily bible reading, this passage flew across my radar:

¹ There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

Sure. I've read it before. I'm sure you have as well. But it had a resonant effect on me today. It just sounded different. Deeper. More personal. It felt much less like an old 60's song and more like God's word for me.

Then I read a section from a book I've been reading on Benedictine spirituality. The resonance clanged more loudly:

Elie Wiesel writes: "What God gave Adam was not forgiveness from sin; what God gave Adam was the chance to begin again." Life is made up of a series of opportunities to begin again... no one has a call simply to a particular place, as good as it may be. The call of God is the Will of God...

The question is always: is this group, this place calling out the best in me? Is this where I fit? Is this the place where I can most become what God created me to be?

It's not a matter of one place being better than another. It is a matter of finding our way through life with an eye for turns in the road. It is a matter of always taking the right turn when settling for less would be so much easier. It is a matter of seeing change as a creative possibility in life.

I took some massive steps of change in February 09. And I'll be honest -- that was such a dramatic shift, such a huge leap into the abyss of the unknown, that I'm realizing that I thought to myself, "There. I've done it. I've dealt with change..." as if I was checking it off the to-do list.

What I'm recognizing is that perhaps change is more of a regular part of my life than I have been used to. Or that the change that started last year isn't over...?

I rest in the truth of Hebrews 12:1-3 ~

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Stillness & Motion

I feel like I heard from God this morning in a couple of nice ways...

First from Henri Nouwen quote of the day:

A Still Place in the Market

"Be still and acknowledge that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). These are words to take with us in our busy lives. We may think about stillness in contrast to our noisy world. But perhaps we can go further and keep an inner stillness even while we carry on business, teach, work in construction, make music, or organise meetings.

It is important to keep a still place in the "marketplace." This still place is where God can dwell and speak to us. It also is the place from where we can speak in a healing way to all the people we meet in our busy days. Without that still space we start spinning. We become driven people, running all over the place without much direction. But with that stillness God can be our gentle guide in everything we think, say, or do.

Then I read this in a devotional:

Spirituality is clearly rooted in living ordinary life with extraordinary awareness and commitment... it is so easy to go through life looking feverishly for special ways to find God when God is most of all to be found in doing common things with uncommon conscientiousness.

Today is my weekly Sabbath day. I got in the habit of taking Saturdays for this (rather than Sundays) years ago when I started working for a church. Today I woke up slowly, read and prayed a bit, then went into the garden and picked some green onion and swiss chard. I sauteed them in some olive oil, fried up some eggs with them and had a very nice breakfast (with a requisite cup of coffee, of course). My day will be simple -- some exercise, a little reading, some doodling around the house that helps bring some order to my personal life. I will heed the words from Nouwen and from Benedict, to revel in the ordinary with acute awareness. I thought about dear old Jack the cat and got a little wistful -- I missed his tail talk in the morning as I made my breakfast. But I enjoyed the birds as I hung laundry and noticed a large black lizard in the woodpile next to the patio. The warmth of the sun felt good on my face.

As I gather myself this Sabbath day and get my wits about me after a full week, I then want to take that stillness that can only come from the Spirit of God into another week of motion. Let's help each other do this.