Jason Campbell

Unfinished poem

2009-02-17T05:38:00.001-08:00

Perhaps the most recent one I have written:

First Become a Tree, then will come the fruit.

1
Once armfulls of brambles
spilled from my chest.
My rootless feet blew
and scraped across hardened ground.
A face full of rips and peels.
Just a bucket of dry brambles for the fire.

2
With hebel, wind and vanity
shouting in my ears ...

3
Until the golden silence,
The day of my vision.

A black sky with not a pinprick through the stormclouds
Crows surrounded the fruit tree.

One flew from a nest in my chest.
A giant crow, black as space.
With talons extended he latched into the tree
and ripped its flesh.

Then they all exploded into a violent wind.

When they settled the tree was bare of bark and fruit.

The tree was bleeding.

4
Christ have mercy,
I must flee before the crow returns to my bramble patch.

It was then that I saw hope
bruised fruit littered the ground.

I reached into my chest and tightened around the wirey thorns,
fire ran through my bloody hands
And I pulled the entire nest and cast it down.

Jay Percival

2008-08-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

So I started a new blog called jaypercival@blogspot.com. For some reason I was listening to Robert Plant and thinking about the different persona/stage names that people come up with (Bono Vox is a good example) and decided that if I ever needed a persona name mine would be Jay Percival. SO, I decided to try out it out in blog form.

I hope you are laughing at me. ... but if you want to read some more recent posts than you see here, you will have to find your way to the new one.

Manifest Demise: Family, Home & Children vs. Career, Government and the Marketplace

2008-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Why is this fight so easily lost?
Our modern age has seen more bloodshed,
but at least as crazy is the loss of common sense.
We have lost the obvious wisdom of
family, home and children

Fight the government
Fight Wall Street and the Academy.

All of mankind might just be saved through childbearing,
Let us all settle down and raise kids.

The American apocalypse,
Manifest Demise
It is upon us and our only
hope lies in marriage and childbearing.

Lust and power
Money and fame
They are all shifty
houses on lose gravel.

The Rock is for the orphans,
The Rock will build a household.
The Rock will crush those upon whom it falls.

OR as the mythopoet Bonnie Prince Billy says, we must pass on so that when we die we will continue to live.

"My body fades, your life goes on." We must build and look forward to "A singing dawn."

----There are probably lots of qualifiers for my statements above ... but that would be tedious (and I am on vacation). All I will offer you is my favorite Walker Percy quote:

"To bed we go for a long winter's nap, twined about each other as the ivy twineth, not under a bush or in a car or on the floor or any such humbug as marked the past peculiar years of Christendom, but at home in bed where all good folk belong." (Love in Ruins)

By the way, Luther married as a monk to re-establish the idea of priests as family men, Kierkegaard rejected Regine because he felt that family and society and status were meshed together and the gospel called him to leave it all behind (he didn't say no one should marry, but he thought he was doing the exact opposite of Luther because of the times). I think that we are at another hinge and must see marriage and family again as a fundamental self-sacrifice and a taking responsibility for something larger and outside of our tiny cracked self ... this is one of the few ways left to us to escape the dread clutches of selfishness and individualism.

One last thought: God called Abraham to be a father (of the people of God). God called Mary to be a mother (of Jesus Christ). Stanley Hauerwas writes: "Just as Abraham is the father of Israel, so Mary is the mother of the church." We must take great care of what we desecrate.

Spiritual Audacity

2008-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

In a telegram to President John F. Kennedy, Abraham Heshel writes:

"I look forward to the privilege of being present at meeting tomorrow at 4 PM. Likelihood exists that the negro problem will be like the weather. Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Please demand of religious leaders personal involvement not just solemn declaration. We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negros. Church synagogues have failed. They must repent. Ask of religious to call for national repentance and personal sacrifice. Let religious leaders donate one month's salary toward fund for negro housing and education. I propose that you Mr. President declare a state of moral emergency. A marshal plan for aid to negros is becoming a necessity. The hour calls for high moral grandeur and spiritual audacity."

Do religious leaders still write such letters to the president? I would like to repeat these words from 1963 for today: THE HOUR CALLS FOR HIGH MORAL GRANDEUR AND SPIRITUAL AUDACITY.

Salome

2008-06-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

My gospel text for mid-week service was Matthew 14:1-12, the intense story about the beheading of John the Baptist. It put me in mind of an old Bonnie Prince Billy song ... it works well as the voice of Herod.

there is grime on my face
there is crust in my eye
there is no one in this place
but no one said goodbye
this is how i start another day in my kingdom

there is hate in my heart
this is how my day starts
there is blood in my hands
from the murder of a man
this is how i start another day in my kingdom
this is how i start another day in my kingdom

This is from his ease on down the road album. Another good art reference is the short play by Oscar Wilde. It is pretty fantastic if my memory serves me. It is called Salome.

What do we think about this?

2008-05-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Fox-Genovese (whom I refer to quite often) writes: "Recent scholarship confirms the age-old wisdom that young women and young men have different sexual agendas: Young men are much more eager for sexual relations with their steady girlfriends than are the girlfriends, who are primarily seeking emotional commitment. The sexual liberation of women thus serves the interests of young men while compromising those of young women. In practice, the sexual liberation of women has realized men's most predatory sexual fantasies. As women shook themselves free from the norms and conventions of sexual conduct, men did the same. Where once young men had been expected to respect a young woman's no, they might now plausibly assume that the no really means yes. They might err in the assumption, sometimes at the heavy cost of being accused of rape, but not because any social rules discouraged sex between unmarried young people. .... George Akerlof, Janet Yellen, and Michael Katz have demonstrated that the increased availability of abortion and contraception in the late 1960s and early 1970s led directly to the dramatic rise in births to single mothers. The plausibly reason that ready access to contraception and abortion seriously undercuts young women's--and their fathers'--ability to use possible pregnancy as a means to avoid sex before marriage or to secure a promise of marriage should a pregnancy occur. In this climate, increasing numbers of young women appear, however misguidedly, to have used sexual acquiescence rather than sexual abstinence to attract and hold a man. The skyrocketing number of out-of-wedlock births and the declining rate of marriage testify to their miscalculation. But the young women who tried to cling to traditional norms of propriety fared no better. With easy access to women who had no objections to premarital sex, men have no incentive to meet the demands of women who sought to trade sex for marriage. It is not surprising that young men who can obtain sex without marriage defer marriage or avoid it entirely."

Culture of Death

2008-05-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

Today on the way in to work NPR was running a story about overweight children ... one third of all children in America. I only heard the tail end, but you can listen to the whole thing here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90880182. This isn't just about kids being to fat, children overweight are unhealthy and more susceptible to disease and other major illness. Guess who is working on this issue for us ... the government. Schools are making major effort to help children assess their problems and training them on diet.

I am not opposed to this, but feel like there is a giant elephant in the room that no one will admit. The powers that be (global economy and intelligencia) have decided that all individuals must be liberated from any obligations ... that freedom means autonomy and choice. Parents have been severed from their children in search of a cheap and ultimately destructive freedom and so the children now have to make it on their own (with the help of public school). But no one can chastise the parents (and on some level they shouldn't) because we don't want to make anyone feel bad for divorce or careers or whatever.

And the real problem or the root of the problem and what makes me angry is the academy, philosophers of culture ... whatever you want to call the people that make up foolish ideas without any concern about how they will affect living people and popularize them without concern of their effect. In our "scientific age" we have more subjectivity than ever ... their is no objectivity when obvious dangers and problems are completely ignored because they will upset our passing fancies. I feel more than ever that our American world is a highly crafted one ... full of tons of unsubstantiated assumptions.

And as intelligent and honest critics admit, all of this comes at a great cost. The cost is falling upon our own children. It would seem that some form of survival of the fittest has shaped our worldview ... perhaps the most insidious version, one that is will to sacrifice its own children on the alter of personal happiness. Pope John Paul designated this "the Culture of Death, a culture that holds human life cheaper and cheaper until it drains it of all intrinsic value, a culture that transforms people into objects or even obstacles." (Fox-Genovese; Marriage, P. 160).

On Marriage

2008-05-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am reading the latest book by Fox-Genovese. It begins with basically her lecture from Princeton (which you can access and was my first introduction to the brilliant lady. Go to www.princeton.edu/webmedia/lectures and search for her name. Here is some of what you will be in for:

"First, the human species divides into males and females who are at once mutually attracted and sufficiently different to be mutually antagonistic, but whose cooperation is necessary to the perpetuation of the human race. Marriage binds them together into what Willa Cather brilliantly called a state of mortal enmity as well as into the bonds of sacramental love. Second, and more importantly, from the perspective of civilization and the species, marriage proposes a reconciliation of the most fundamental natural difference among human beings--sex. For to flee from engaging that difference is ultimately to flee from all others."

something old that fell out of a book

2008-05-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

I remember writing it in New York (upstate) during the summer

My eyes fell upon a ruined house,

A devastated temple

The flesh was old and thin

Something dark and sweet around the mouth

but the belly swollen

The eyes were red and darting about

as if looking for a lost occupant

the spotted skin seemed stretched

to reveal a crooked and falling frame

how old?

23 was his reply.

Its time to rebuild.

Christ was it your Life

that kept rot and decay from you

even in death.

But my composition is reversed

for in my living I have already begun to rot.

Although death may not be better

for this, my delicate skin and fragile frame.

So rebuild! Rebuild!

The words of Jesus are:

"Consumed with zeal for my house!"

Tear apart my temple and rebuild it Lord Jesus.

Life and Death

2008-05-02T18:11:00.000-07:00

I just finished my first novel by Wendell Berry (did you know he hand-writes everything?)

Andy Catlett is about (I think) Berry when he was a boy. The novel is told as if Andy is now an old man, but is remembering a trip to his grandparents house during WWII just before he turned 10. These are some of his reflections toward the end of the book.

Time is told by death, who doubts it? But time is always halved--for all we know, it is halved--by the eye blink, the synapse, the immeasurable moment of the present. Time is only the past and maybe the future; the present moment, dividing and connecting them, is eternal. The time of the past is there, somewhat, but only somewhat, to be remembered and examined. We believe that the future is there too, for it keeps arriving, though we know nothing about it. But try and stop the present for you patient scrutiny, or to measure its length with your most advanced chronometer. It exists, so far as I can tell, only as a leak in time, through which, if we are quiet enough, eternity falls upon us and makes its claim. And here I am, an old man, traveling as a child among the dead.

We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. For time is told also by life. As some depart, others come. The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome. I, who once had grandparents and parents, now have children and grandchildren. Like the flowing river that is yet always present, time that is always going is always coming. And time that is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, which is always present. Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and the dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is lonely. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.

We are alive in this flow of time ... I currently have four grandmothers, two mothers and two fathers, one wife (I'm not mormon you know) and three kids. This will change over time ... let us be grateful for this time that we live, for this present moment ... where we have the chance to be quiet enough to "let eternity fall upon us and make its claim."

Power Games

2008-05-01T08:21:00.001-07:00

I came across a quote by that deserves some attention:

"For once we have toppled God and nature as authoritative sources of the difference between the sexes, we are indeed left with gender understood as a conventional or 'relational' organization of the darkling plain of fluctuating relations among individuals, each of whom is jockying for maximum power."

Sadly, this is much of what is going on in our world between men and women. In one of Dallas Willards books he talks about how our throwing out of all authority and absolutes, even rites, rituals and customs, leaves us paralyzed in a vacuous freedom. It is as if becoming aware of violence and oppression perpetrated by our boney fists, we decided to remove the bones altogether. Once that happened we quickly sluffed off the filthy skin and now we are exposed and without shape in a world that seems more frightening (not less).

I don't know the best way to understand gender roles, but I think she makes an important point that if we throw out God and nature, we aren't left with much. If all roles, rites, inclinations, etc. are simply social constructs (arbitrary and disposable) how do we not end up in a power game. There is not time to go into it fully, but I like how Paul dealt with this massive problem.

The world of the first century was most certainly a time of male domination and female oppression. Women were not considered equal, as a gender or as individual wives or daughters. Fathers kept wives to bear sons and sought mistresses and concubines for pleasure. They had the power to literally, drop their daughters in the trash (one of the early Christian ministries was to save these forsaken orphan girls). Men, as husband, as father, as master, had all the power in that society. So Paul (see Ephesians 5) goes after them. He tells men three time to love their wives, in a culture were they didn't love their wives. Twice it is love your own wife, in a culture where faithlessness was the norm. He goes right at the powerful and tells them to love like Christ. He goes right at the powerful and explodes the power game by saying that you must follow Christ to the cross. Your love must be sacrificial. You must lay your life down.

I think if Paul were writing this letter today he would have to tell both men and women in the words of Christ from John's gospel; "you must love one another, as I have loved you." He would tell both genders to forget the power game and follow Jesus to the cross. He would tell both genders to lay their lives down. As Paul says, we preach Christ and him crucified.

Bishop Spong

2008-04-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you have heard of Bishop Spong. Like so many popularizers of modernity, he is rather dated (modern equivalents would be Pagels or Ehrman). I am sure they still have all his books at Barnes and Nobles. His most famous was Why Christianity Must Change or Die. I am reading some essays from Gordon Fee (a New Testament scholar) and came across one where he was responding to a debate between Spong and Stott. I really liked what Fee had to say and what he pointed out about Spong.

Even though I see Spong like any boy band, destined for the dollar bin at the Book Nook, His bland attempts at saying something unique is actually repeated over and over (much like the LA created boy bands ... from N' Sync to Linkyn Park).

At one point Fee makes the comment that instead of having any real view on the Scriptures, Spong "is jousting still with the windmills of his past." I have not read Don Quixote, but think that image is fairly appropriate for this kind of scholar (Spong). But my favorite line and the one that made me want to blog is:

"In the final analysis, Spong pushes us to make a clearcut choice between him, with his obvious enchantment with modernity, and Paul, who says that when he proclaims Christ he speaks the very message of God. Faced with such choice, and it is the only choice Spong allows us, I will go with Paul every time. For in Paul I find the love of God and God's wrath against our sin brought together in the cross; in Spong I find merely soft mush."

There you have it friends. Me and Fee are going with Paul everytime.

By the way, I haven't forgotten about Wendell ... I will pick back up with part 4 very soon.

Two Ways of Walking on a Beach

2008-04-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

Part II

(Part one is from April 2007)

Have you ever heard that Augustine once wrote that "God is younger than all else." We know that Jesus warned us that unless we became like children we would never enter the kingdom of heaven. Augustine goes further and says that God is younger than us. That we have become older than God. Our minds so quickly wander and dwell on what is not, when what is is plainly before us.

I felt this quite often at the beach. How easy it is for my children to be present and engaged with the wonders of the ocean itself. I end up thinking about what I could be reading or what I might want to do with my life or that the water is cold. It is better to be young and jump in waves.

It is better to observe the firmaments and the division of the waters and be in awe.

The highlight for me this year was when Isaac saw a stingray in the shallow (and crystal clear water). It was big enough that Matt Yoder was watching it swim nearer and nearer to Isaac from his balcony on the 8th floor. The moment I saw it, I felt very alive. I started running down the beach with it watching it swim. If I am honest, I felt like I got a glimpse of why people travel to far lands to watch wild animals. It was amazing to see this wild and strange looking fish, flapping its wings in the water. I found myself looking for it the next day when I went out for a walk ... and actually I think I will look for it from now on. It was fascinating to realize that if I keep my eyes open I may just see some hilarious space-craft with wings in the water one day again.

May we all become like children and so become like God.

W.B.3 - Television and Advertising

2008-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

"Television is the greatest disrespecter and exploiter of sexuality that the world has ever seen; even if the network executives decide to promote 'safe sex' and the use of condoms, they will not cease to pimp for the exceedingly profitable 'sexual revolution.'" (P. 124)

I think we all know the first phrase is true, but it is interesting to see him accuse the media executives philanthropy (in donating air space and money to educational commercials for safe sex) as fulfilling a further purpose of furthering our national sexual addiction ... and that he even comments that the musician led sexual revolution of the 60s was a welcome addition to the ad industry.

This reminds me of something I read by Fredrica Matthews-Green about the troubling conformity that was happening during the fifties. Goods were being mass-produced and were cheap ... so everyone was buying, turning us into a nation of mere consumers. The term for this was conformity and there was much talk about what to do to stop it. Fortunately (read: unfortunately) this dilemma is forgotten because it was resolved.

"Advertising developed the brilliant solution of presenting the consumer as rebel. Customers could prove their independence by buying goods that demonstrated defiance of fashion. Such fashionable goods were akin to talismans, keeping the specter of conformity at bay. Especially fashionable were those products that appeared to repudiate fashion, implying that you were too cool to care whether you were cool. Yet because these goods could still be identically mass-produced, they remained affordable and of reassuringly familiar quality. The goods had never been the problem; anxiety about consuming them was the problem. This problem was eliminated through the magic of marketing, by invention of the consumer-as-rebel persona."

Think about that next time you are shopping for something unique and stylish.

W.B.2 - Economy of Households

2008-04-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

"The conventional public opposition of 'liberal' and 'conservative' is, here and elsewhere, perfectly useless. The 'conservatives' promote the family as a sort of public icon, but they will not promote the economic integrity of the household or the community, which are the mainstays of family life. Under the sponsorship of 'conservative' presidencies, the economy of the modern household, which once required the father to work away from home--a development that was bad enough--now requires the mother to work away from home, as well. And this development has the wholehearted endorsement of 'liberals' who see the mother thus forced to spend her days away from her home and children as 'liberated'--though nobody has yet to see the fathers thus forced away as 'liberated.' Some feminist are thus in the curious position of opposing the mistreatment of women and yet advocating their participation in an economy in which everything is mistreated." (P. 122-23)

There is a lot here that is strange and new to our 2008 eyes. Berry understands that historically (before the industrial revolution ... at least in the rural setting) the household had its own economy. The father and mother and the children all worked together. Even if the father was a cobbler or a blacksmith, his children were around pretending to be like dad and the store and the house were usually the same thing. That world is behind us (his "economy of the modern household" where the dad must go away to work ... sometimes even miles away, to return on the weekends or late in the evenings). Now both parents do this journey and there is less and less anything that could really be described as a home or community.

I can't remember if it was him or Fox-Genovese that made the comment that the women's liberation movement was very profitable for Wall Street ... effectively doubling our work force. She said it goes beyond that because it brought with it a greater degree of separation, indeed, willingness to travel and work away from home because there wasn't one anymore.

NOW, I realize that these are larger trends and are not true of every modern household. On my street (with both Christians and non-Christians, in the city of Atlanta) all the mom's stay at home. I also realize that while it might be nice to have this kind of life, it is not possible for some people ... poor families have always had to have both parents work. But I think Berry's comments (and he has plenty more to say ... I am a mere 7 pages into this essay) are worth hearing out as much as we can.

It also makes an interesting point about the appearance of choice we have between "conservatives" and "liberals". Another wild thinker who I am still not sure how to take is Chomsky. He says that this is typical of American propaganda. We have the appearance of choice, when really both sides are saying the same thing in two different ways. Berry says a little farther down on page 123 that while conservatives attack homosexuality, abortion, and pornography, they don't usually oppose sexual promiscuity, because "sexual discipline would reduce the profits of corporations, which in their advertisements and entertainments encourage sexual self-indulgence as a way of selling merchandise." This may seem far to skeptical for some ... it is coming from a farmer who has seen first hand the physical and communal devastation of the modern economy.

I think we ought to listen and try and take it into account as we think through our own choices.

Wendell Berry (Part 1)

2008-04-20T19:13:00.001-07:00

Wendell Berry is a farmer. He is a poet and essayist and novelist. He is a critic. He is a husband and father and grandfather. He is very tall and a very good talker. He is coming from such a different perspective and has so committed himself to an older way of life and so he becomes a voice for true local culture. I have been reading him for a couple years now and feel like I owe him quite a lot for stretching my brain ... possibly even helping me to imagine an entirely new way to see the world.

The next few posts are all going to deal with his essay "Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community".

He begins the essay with a relatively modern example of a public failure regarding private matters ... stating that this convolution of the two, which is missing any concept of community is just one more example in the long line that represents the disintegration of community ... the spending of social capital (with the only result being the lining of profit-lined pockets).

Ok, so here is your first quote: "As our communities have disintegrated from external predation and internal disaffection, we have changed from a society whose ideal of justice was trust and fairness among people who knew each other into a society whose ideal of justice is public litigation, breeding distrust even among people who know each other."

This is most certainly a sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in. But look how he connects it to sexuality.

"Once it has shrugged off the interests and claims of the community, the public language of sexuality comes directly under the influence of private lust, ambition, and greed and becomes inadequate to deal with the real issues and problems of sexuality. ... 'Sexual education' carried out in this public language, is and can only be a dispirited description of the working of a sort of anatomical machinery--and this is a sexuality that is neither erotic nor social nor sacramental but rather a cold-blooded, abstract procedure that is finally not even imaginable."

to be continued ...

cursed reading

2008-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else struggle with writing cuss words in the books they are reading? I don't struggle with it very often ... only when I don't like the way someone is arguing (I struggle with cussing when listening to politicians too). A while ago I read a book by Donald Bloech (I think that is right). It was one of his shorter ones and I still hear he is highly recommended and respected, but I found him making ridiculous arguments and throwing some of my other favorite people under the bus (old dead people who I have never met, but love nonetheless) and I would write out very mean things in response. Sometimes I erased them after I wrote them ... I am not sure why. I don't suspect anyone will ever read my copy of the book, I just felt like it was too much to leave in the margin. Other times, I left it ... feeling like it was justified. Occasionally I will read these to Tara to try and make her laugh at me. Sometimes she does.

But maybe I have said to much. Please don't read this as condoning cussing. I will not tell you which words I use (I mean who knows ... maybe I am referring to horrible things like "darnett all"). Seriously, I don't believe that cussing in general adds very much color to things and often is massively over used. So don't use this blog to justify anything.

I am reading a book now that is making me mad. I had to put it down for a while ...

I guess I am just posting to let people know how worked up I get about books. Do you guys experience that too?

I am definitely a nerd.

For Families

2008-04-08T05:12:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who settest the solitary
in families: We commend to thy continual care the homes in
which thy people dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee,
every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride
of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance,
patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those
who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh. Turn the
hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among
us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one
to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Please hear our prayer.

(From the Book of Common Prayer; P. 828)

Commandment: God Speaks to Us

2008-04-03T05:38:00.000-07:00

In continuing thinking on the psalms, I read a chapter of Bruggemann this morning. He reminded me of something that others have written about as well ... that the God of Israel (who is the God of the NT as well) is interested in morality. There is a powerful statement in Deuteronomy 6:20-25

20When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. 23He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. 24Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case. 25If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”

The God of the Bible is particular. He is love as John tells us, but part of that definition of his character is concern for justice and righteousness. And so we and the world around us are constantly addressed by this particular, the true God's, "summons to obedience" as the ultimate way of knowing Him (in Walter's words).

And he quoted from another book I really like (and happen to have a summery of on my computer). "Who Is Man?" by Abraham Heschel. Heschel says that central to understanding man (humankind) is his sense of personal indebtedness, that God is not only a power we depend on, but "He is a God who demands." He even uses Decartisian language to define man "I am commanded -- therefore I am."

While we like to think of salvation and redemption being wrought by God alone (and in some sense, rightly so), we forget that his saving deeds (saving Israel out of Egypt or the world out of perishing in sin and death) is a summons to obedience. And there is a profound dignity here if we can see past our modern disdain for words like command, duty, even righteousness. As Moses preaches to those children on the eve of entering the promised land "The Lord commanded us ... for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive."

The Psalter

2008-04-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

I started reading the daily office of psalms two days ago and it has been very powerful to me. Yesterday I read 5,6,9 and 10 and today was part of 119, 12, 13, and 14. I feel like, among other things, it roots me in the larger world. Reminds me that God is the God of the whole earth and his concern is for everyone. He really wants to rid the world of wicked men and wicked deeds so that the orphan and oppressed may receive justice. These words sort of galvanize me in prayer for our broken world.

This morning on NPR they were talking about Tibet and China and the horrible relations and sounds like atrocities that China is perpetuating over that nation. Something so distant and involving the persecution of people of another religion (Buddhist persecution), and the psalms remind me that God is furious about it and he will respond.

"Oh, that the Lord would cut off all smooth tongues,
and close the lips that utter proud boasts!

'Because the needy are oppressed,
and the poor cry out in misery,
I will rise up,' says the Lord,
'and give them the help they long for.'"
From psalm 12

Or from psalm 11 which expresses doubt about the future of mankind.

"see how the wicked bend the bow
and fit their arrows to the string,
to shoot from ambush at the true of heart.

When the foundations are being destroyed,
what can the righteous do?"

Things seem over ... the wicked are winning ... the very foundations are being destroyed, but the next verse:

"The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord's throne is in heaven."

(more powerful words)

concluding with
"and the just shall see his face."

The Silent Windstorm

2008-03-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

20 minutes of writing in the coffee shop ... the first writing I have done in a long time.

Why can't you see that you are lost
in the quiet windstorm of our age.
These are the dust bowl days,
but the wind blows so powerlessly,
so odorless and flavorless,
that it sneaks in past your coat,
or convinces you to go without one
and it it seeps into your pores
A toxin inside your body.

Your mind finds a new center,
All outward attention dilates with new focus
On a very surface level
this new center is simply yourself.
What used to be the wonder of the great outside,
what used to be a magnificant world of the great "Others"
Subtly shifts to the world of "providers" or "products" or "rivals"
The world shrinks as our need shifts
What used to be seen and understood and lauded,
Is now only stolen, consumed and destroyed.

But again, this is only the surface,
This is the initial stage of the sickness
The first happenings of this nothing poison
blowing into our soul.

There is another level of realization:
All of these demanding needs
at the very least the form they take
while born in your body,
born in your heart
were planted from the outside.

There is a larger business at work
These "needs" are imports,
and there is a sickening sameness about them.
Creativity is hardly allowed
for someone full of this empty wind.
Like the wash of a suburban commercial skyline
is our souls laid together shopping.

But we must recover, and quick.
I will wear an iron coat,
but what of my insides?
How to be cleansed and changed and saved?

Ash Wednesday Eve (Fat Tuesday (Super Fat Tuesday))

2008-02-05T19:22:00.000-08:00

Well tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I played with the ashes tonight ... trying to make sure we had the right mixture of oil to ash (the oil just helps it stick to foreheads). The ash is jet black and looks like solid smoke on my forehead. Is my life on fire or is it burned out? Some of both when I am honest. Some of both when I take the time to look close.

If God took the dirty earth and breathed life into it to create our ancient father, then maybe there is hope for the blackened ash in the hollow places of my heart. The only thing more lifeless than dust is ash.

I don't feel that black most of the times ... most of the time I think I am doing pretty well. I honestly am looking forward to my fasting and slowing and focusing so I can see the black parts a little better.

I am trying an interesting fast this year. I continue with dropping sweets and alcohol and snacks (the first I use for escape, the second for celebration and the third for boredom). None of those things I want to distract from facing my sin and mortality as I look upon the death of Christ. But I am also fasting from reading books.

I got the idea from Lauren Winner in her book "Girl Meet God." By the way, that is the worst title ever ... so misleading! It is an amazing book and probably the most literate and honest conversion story I have read. But she is a big reader and her priest challenges her to give up books for lent. I read that at a time where I felt quite overwhelmed with an overstrong desire to consume books. I literally am reading at least 10 different books and don't have any plan for why or which one when. And on top of that 50 more get stared at each week because I can't wait to start them. But worse than all that is that when I don't know what to do with myself ... when I don't want to pray ... when I don't want to think or write or do some financial planning or whatever ... I just read one of the ten books I have going.

So Lent will be a time for me to put all those wonderful people and their published thoughts aside too see what happens if I only have myself to live with. And of course ... it isn't just myself ... it is my family and God and the Bible ... etc. I am looking forward to the change.

Walker Percy

2008-01-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

I wish he were still alive ...

Percy was a southern Catholic novelist and very acute in his ability to see around him. He understood that one of the large problems with Protestant Christianity ... maybe particularly in America was its enlightenment duality ... its distrust of mixing spirit with things ... with the body.

"she mistrusts the Old Church's traffic in things, sacraments, articles, bread, wine, salt, oil, water, ashes."

But he was also very aware that this distrust was not Christian. In fact, he saw the great work of Christ as uniting man within himself by uniting him to God. All Catholics have a better appreciation for the Incarnation and the great meaning that gives to the world of things ... and it has always been a part of the Hebrew understanding with their poetry of trees clapping and fields singing.

In Love in Ruins Percy's character thinks he has invented technology that will reunite man with himself. "my lapsometer, the first caliper of the soul and the first hope of bridging the dread chasm that has rent the soul of Western man ever since the famous philosopher Descartes ripped body loose from mind and turned the very soul into a ghost that haunts its own house."

and toward the end ...
"For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but no man. Even now I can diagnose and shall one day cure: cure the new plague, the modern Black Death, the current hermaphroditism of the spirit, namely: More's syndrome, or: chronic angelism-bestialism that rives soul from body and sets it orbiting the great world as the spirit of abstraction whence it takes the form of beasts, swans and bulls, werewolves, blood-suckers, Mr. Hydes, or just poor lonesome ghosts locked in its own machinery."

"Some day a man will walk into my office as ghost or beast or ghost-beast and walk out as a man, which is to say sovereign wanderer, lordly exile, worker and waiter and watcher."

At another point in the novel the protaganist's wife asks her Roman Catholic husband: "My God, what is it you do in Church?" More explains, "What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the Angels, that it took nothing less than ... eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning."

I heartily agree. It is eating Christ in the bread and wine and loving my wife and my children who are real ... it is acknowledging God's presence with me now as my fingers hit these shiny keys and my eyes look upon technology--technology surrounded by human mess an empty glass containing watery lime (my new experiement in drinking fruit every day) and the multiple papers covered in messy ink and the flower-laden sheep that dance around my coffee mug and the tattered postcard from Iran in 1994 and the smooth wax candle handmade by Ryan ... it is all these things and these things present to God, God present to them, God praised through them, God given to them ... that make me a man and make me whole.

The last line of my book makes me cry when I read it ... I don't know if its because I have been through this novel a couple times or if you will get it reading it ahead of time ... but I write it anyway as the profound beginning of redemption in a fallen world. It is a domestic scene where the hero, finally married to one women, denies his old temptations and goes home to his wife.

"To bed we go for a long winter's nap, twined about each other as the ivy twineth, not under a bush or in a car or on the floor or any such humbug as marked the past peculiar years of Christendom, but at home in bed where all good folk belong."

Amen.

Waiting dinners

2007-12-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

About two weeks ago I had a Thursday night to myself and so I decided to read some scripture and try and ready myself for Christmas. I read Luke 14 a couple of times because of the upcoming Lazarus dinner with the homeless. I also read Isaiah 25 a couple of times ... I am fascinated with that text and Kenneth Bailey connects it to Luke 14. So here is my results ... my new art form is poetic sketches. Or maybe they are just first drafts ideas to be taken up by someone more sure with the pen and paint than I am.

"Distance is the soul of beauty." (Simone Weil)

I came across this quote a while ago, but thought about it again this advent. It seems to make a lot of sense and be hard to grasp at the same time. It has something to do with desire and the place of desire in life and hope and love. The 12th century monks used to spend a lot of time in the Old Testament and would say that desire was one of the key themes there. It taught them to wait and long for the messiah, for peace, for the promised land. When they finally opened the gospels, the desert bloomed.

But what if waiting creates anxiety of abandonment? What if waiting never feels secure, only painful. Bonhoeffer said that only the uneasy can wait. He said that celebrating advent was only possible to those who are "troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come." It is important to have a troubled soul. It shows you that your eyes work and your heart hasn't been cauterized or dulled or frozen. And so we wait.

In this waiting, I can't help but put together the picture of the future banquet where the Lord will swallow death and wipe away tears as one filled with the kind of people Jesus wanted to invite to his table. This is really the inspiration for my poetic sketch. It speaks of uneasy waiting and returns us to the longing of the early church which cried Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

The Banquet

2007-12-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

There will be weeping and chattering of teeth
when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,
and you yourselves thrown out.

And they will come from the East and West
and from the North and South
and sit at table in the kingdom of God.

And then there is Isaiah 25 where God sets down a fat banquet, a wine banquet. The people swallow the banquet and God swallows up death.

I just think this is incredible and intense. But I really wanted to write about Luke 14

Jesus said:
"Whenever you give a lunch or dinner,
do not invite your friends
or brothers or relatives or wealthy neighbors.
They might invite you in return and thus repay you.
No, when you have a banquet,
invite beggars
and the crippled,
the lame
and the blind.

and you will be blessed,
because they cannot repay you.
For you will be repaid
at the resurrection of the just."

These are the words of Jesus and I am thankful to be able to have the slightest participation in their fulfillment this Saturday.

Marcello

2007-12-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

It was very challenging to hear the stories again that I heard long ago ... almost at the beginning of my own Christian walk. The picture above is from a postcard Marcello gave me the first time I met him. It was to remind me to pray for the country of his heart and the people he loved. He still loves those people and still has a heart for that country more than thirteen years later.

I had many thoughts listening to Marcello tell his story. That he was a man who spoke with his life. I know these stories to be true and have known about his brave quests for a long time (and been challenged by them). God has watched over him all this time and it is ultimately because God does care about the forgotten church in the middle east. I saw this again last year when I was reading the scholar Kenneth Bailey. He says "there are more Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East than Jews in the entire world. This demographic fact is generally unknown in the West, where all Arabs are often assumed to be Muslims. The result is that even though there were Arab Christians in the Upper Room on Pentecost (Acts 2:11), millions of Arab Christians today are almost invisible to the Western world."

The one thing I don't want to, especially after hearing Marcello speak, is forget our brothers and sisters in this part of the world. That really is a huge way for us to grow is by becoming more aware of the rest of the earth.

Reflection on Sign Four from John's Gospel

2007-11-14T05:48:00.000-08:00

I think my favorite part is right after it says that the Great Passover Feast was near ... John describes Jesus looking up and seeing a great crowd coming toward HIM. The hungry pilgrams are going to their yearly feast in Jerusalem and man they look like they are starving ... and there is so many of them. So Jesus' sense of humor or maybe just playfullness kicks in and he says to Phillip: "Where should we buy bread for these people?" They are looking for a feast right, well, how are we going to provide it for them?

While Phillip is expressing his dumbfoundedness, Peter's brother speaks up, "There is a little poor boy who has offered his meager barley loaves and small fish ... but I don't know what that means." Do you think Jesus smiled about the young man who has more faith than his disciples? There is a lot missing here for me ... did they talk long enough for the boy to get that they were trying to come up with the food. Who was this young boy anyway and why was he so close to the disciples (not with the great crowd of people).

Jesus provides from this boys lunch a feast for over 5000 people with plenty left over (all that they want). Jesus is definitley pointing to his ability to feed our hunger. This always make me think of the verse in the Old Testament that "Man cannot live by bread alone, but needs the word of God." I think Jesus is setting up to teach about how he is the bread of Life ... the word of God that will cause us to live.

Reflection on Sign Three from John's Gospel

2007-11-08T05:41:00.000-08:00

I think this story is one of the more interesting and mysterious in the whole gospel. Jesus is reported to have healed massive amounts of people (Mark writes multiple times of Jesus healing many), but here we have Jesus entering a place packed with sick people and just walking around. The place itself is like a hospital with no doctors ... maybe, like some commentaries suggest, this is some sort of early government welfare program. The government spreads a story about an angel, offering the people the comfort of a false hope (and keeping them off the city streets). However they got there, Jesus walks into their midst. I get the impression that no one recognized him and so he is just looking.

This is what strikes me first. Jesus is there among "a great number of disabled people ... the blind, the lame and the paralyzed" simply looking. Simply taking in this place full of sickness and old stories, maybe even urban legends. And then he sees the man we read about. Something about him makes Jesus curious about him and so he asks someone ... maybe a guard or maybe just one of the sick people. They say something like, "Oh that's Harry. He has been here a long time, 38 years is what I hear."

Thirty-eight years! Really trying to imagine that is difficult. Thirty-eight years of sitting idle in hopes that somehow you will be touched by the angel and be made whole. It reminds me of poor people buying lottery tickets every day. Thirty-eight years of daily playing lucky seven, but never winning. I wonder how old Harry was, did this happen when he was a teenager or when he was in his twenties?

John repeats the length of time he has been in this state and John is careful with his words. Twice we see that it has been a long time ... the repetition helps it to sink in before we see what Jesus says. "Do you want to get well?" This question helps me to get it. The people who come here have given all hope of having the money for a doctor, or having someone who would care for them. This is a hopeless place and so coming here is a good sign that you actually don't want to get well.

Harry replies with an excuse. It is almost impossible for me to not read this as whining. Jesus asked him a question about healing, the man offers no belief this is possible, but complains about not having any friends. His resopnse gives us a further picture of this place and what it does to a man's soul. We hear of sick people fighting to jump into bubbling mineral water which will offer no cure. False hope inciting pathetic violence ... a very sad place.

I actually don't think Jesus took that as a yes. I haven't read the commentaries (Kris did for his sermon), but my gut impression of their dialogue is that at this point Jesus grows impatient with this place and with Harry and so he forcefully says (maybe even shouts) "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."

But what does that mean for me as a Christian? What does that reveal to me about Jesus? First of all his anger (if I am reading it right) is not so much directed at Harry personally, but really at sickness and its affects on humanity, the way it can reduce someone to such a pathetic state, someone that God created in his image, someone who is meant to be great. In this way the sickness is much deeper than physical. The physical sickness has led this man to spiritual sickness ... in this story defined possibly as passivity and hopelessness. Harry pathetically says, "No one will help me" and Jesus respends by commanding him to action. Later in the story Harry says "I didn't decide to carry my mat, somebody told me to" (passive) and finally he decides to obey the conspirators by taking them Jesus' name (passive). I think that is the meaning of the strange word from Jesus "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." in verse 14. Jesus knew that there was something worse than being cripple.

The anger Jesus shows is the same kind of anger he shows at the funeral of Lazarus. There he is angry with death and its effects on human beings and here he is angry with sickness and its effects. Jesus came to heal, but he also came to repair human dignity. So where are the hopeless places I go and what drives me there. I know in the past I really struggled with the typical existential question of "Who am I?" Evidentially this is what everyone asked nowadays. The hopeless place was a mindset where I said to myself "I don't have anything to offer to God ... God didn't give me anything I am good at ... I must have messed something up because I never hear from God or see God work through me."

Slowly I learned that what I was really doing was pathetically bowing out of my responsibility to be in the image of God. I was inventing inner illnesses (suburbantitis, opportunity paralysis, etc.) But slowly God and my wife and my friends called me to walk after God and with a lot of inner striving I feel like I have responded yes to the first question and am walking along. But there are still times when I start to question everything again. When I want to return to the place of no responsibility (because I am unfit for any of it or not really good enough or whatever), but I think praying responsively (even as a mantra) is probably not a bad idea: "Lord Jesus Christ, YES, I DO WANT TO get well." May this prayer keep me walking.

Reflection on Sign Two from John's Gospel

2007-10-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

There are two things in this section (4:43-54) that really shine out to me as I read it again. The first is Jesus' initial response. "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." Out of context we might take that as a truth statement ... maybe that is what some charasmatics believe. But it is clear in context that this is connected to a feeling of anger and frutration. Jesus even lumps! He says "you people." I imagine it as, "You people always want something from me ... You people are insatiable. Are you people listening to anything I am saying? ... Do you people care at all about who I am and what I came to do or are you just clamoring for spectacle and handouts?" Well, I say to myself, what is it? Do I care about Jesus and his purpose or am I just clamoring for my own needs and curiousity. I think sometimes, unfortunately, I approach him with unbelief, demanding a sign.

Let me give you an example. Right now I am really trying to work on developing a prayer life. I know, I am a pastor (maybe most people won't read my blog and see how much I need to grow). But when I set aside time in the morning to pray to God, am I really ready to face him and believe his presence and sit with him. Or do I just hope that he will answer a question I have, grant a prayer request or just give me a good feeling. I wonder sometimes in those early mornings if Jesus isn't heard saying, in frustration, "Unless, I do this for you Jason, you will never believe." And the thing is he won't do that for me because he knows that kind of belief (believing in Jesus so he can make my plans come to pass and give me good feelings and meet my curiousity demands) is not believing at all ... its using. Remember that Peterson quote, when we believe, we are at our most personal and intimate with God and other people. That is only true if I stop making all my demands and trying to manipulate God. I think what the crowd was ultimately saying that drove Jesus to make that statement was "I don't believe you! And if you want me to, then prove it by making a second miracle happen." There will never be enough miracles for that kind of proving.

And that brings me to the next thing that is really powerful. The royal official is not approaching Jesus for spectacle because he needed Jesus to prove himself. The official already believed Jesus, that is why he persisted. He was willing to follow, he was willing to meet the real Jesus. That is why it says "the man took Jesus at his word and departed" or in the NRSV "the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way." Its not about never needing Jesus to help us in this life or when someone we love is sick or dying. Maybe some people could develop a wrong spirituality that thinks that asking for help in those areas is bad ... I think the real issue at hand is believing Jesus enough to take him at his word. Believing him enough to believe the word that he speaks and start on our way. Believing him enough to stick with him and listen closely and obediently to his words whether specatacle or good feelings come.

Reflection on the first miraculous sign in John

2007-10-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

One thing I can't get over is that this is "the first of his signs." It is an incredible thing that he could change water into wine, but doesn't it seem like a major healing or a massive food miracle would have been the more natural opener. But Jesus begins turning water, something that meets our needs for cleanliness and thirst, into wine, something that makes our hearts glad and reminds us that life is good and worth celebrating. This whole scene is about celebration of life.

Another thing I don't quite understand is that it really seems like Mary had a major hand in this happening. It is clear that Jesus was not forced into a miracle. He had a healthy break from the mom-hold that some men struggle with, but it does appear that if she hadn't brought it up, he might not have begun with this miracle. Does this speak to prayer and the value of human involvement with the divine will of God? It appears to me that Mary' concern made the opportunity for Jesus to reveal himself.

And that is the big question we are supposed to be asking this week. What does this miraculous sign reveal about Jesus? Kris encouraged us to not get lost in the gallons of wine but to try and see what is being signified. One large thing I see is that Jesus' values are incredibly different than ours in America and really in every human community. We are always self-promoting. More and more that is the only way to get ahead in our ever changing economy. We learn self-promoting because our world values all forms of promotion: advertisement, packaging, even propaganda. We are constantly choosing new products based on fashion and slick design and in turn we become consumer goods, constantly aware of our own press and dress.

But Jesus doesn't mind that no one really notices his first sign (at least none of the important people). It doesn't even describe Jesus telling the disciples ... we must assume he did or perhaps they were awkward at the party and so stuck close to Jesus and witnessed this miracle themselves. Mary sees it, but she is already a believer. She shows us this with her serious command, "Do whatever he tells you." And the only other witnesses were servants. The people who carried food around and washed feet.

Jesus seems very content to do work that goes unnoticed and that gets me. If we are his disciples and not disciples of America, or worse amoral global economy, then we must turn away from self-promotion and all the worries and frenzies entailed. And honestly, that doesn't sound easy. Especially when I realize how constantly I am bombarded with the American way. I think for me, and maybe for a lot of us, we are getting very confused about how to feel affirmed in life. For so many of us life is about being liked. We self-promote because we want compliments ... but that so easily becomes our driving force since fashion is always changing (good for the clothing and tech industry, not so much for us individuals).

For me, the trouble surrounds a crazy desire for knowledge. I love books. I really love authors but in order to interact with them I have to read their books. This love is not a bad thing, but oftentimes, for me, it comes with a frenzied and worried sort of striving. Yesterday someone was leading me in prayer and they asked me to picture Jesus from the scriptures. Pretty quickly I began to imagine another feasting moment from the scriptures, one of Jesus and his disciples sitting at an earthly table having a long conversation. I thought about how that was the conversation where Jesus called his disciples friends and so it was Jesus with his friends at the last supper. In my mind I saw Jesus there with the others around him and even though I know there was a soberness to that night, in my moment of prayer it felt more like a feast. It really struck me to imagine Jesus coming down from heaven to feast with his earthly friends. And then I was asked if Jesus was saying anything to me. I saw myself sitting with him and my friends (you know, John, Peter, Thomas, etc.). I was sitting at the same table, but reading a book. I knew they were present and I was enjoying their presence, but nonetheless I had my nose in a book. And Jesus was calling me to join the party. It was a sweet invitation.

And that is the other part of this first sign that really affects me. So we are called away from self-promoting and constant manipulation of our packaging and reputation. But the man who calls us and the man we want to follow and learn from, is truly the life of the party. "Wine gladdens the heart of man" is what the psalmist writes. According to some scholars, Jesus had the servants draw wine from a well and it was some of the best their wedding coordinator had ever tasted. What we really want is glad hearts and the world says we can achieve this through purchase and self-promotion. Jesus knows that is a lie and a false path. Jesus knows that way only leads to a weary heart. But if we follow him, the wine is in endless supply. It is a sweet invitation.

is everything about love?

2007-06-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

So there is this life we all get to live, each of us in our own skin. Our spirit and skin are never seperate and so the place where our feet trod and our head hits the pillow is the place where our eyes communicate to our brain and our heart surges with thought and emotion and our spirit embodied decides which step to take and what words to speak.

And I wonder if every relationship becomes of vital importance. And more than anything we need to hear words that applaud our existance. It is almost that as obvious as our need for daily bread and sleep ... we need to be loved. We need to be dear to someone. Life quickly becomes meaningless when no one seems to care we are alive ... isn't that almost the definition of clinical depression. But there are no quick fixes. Modern day sexuality only hastens our loneliness. "The mere sex partner does not come into focus as a personal being ... where the playboy is concerned, the fig leaf has merely been moved to another place; it now covers the human face." and futher "Ricoeur points out, 'Everything that makes the sexual encounter easy simultaneously speeds its collapse into insignificance. What can be had on demand necessarily loses both its value and its attractiveness. .. 'so much sex and so little meaning or even fun in it.'" (These quote are from Josef Pieper's essay on Love).

I know that was a bumpy jump to leap from love to sex, but these words are often so entangled.

In another line Pieper refer's to love as the only "green thing" in "the grayed world of a work-oriented society geared to output." But this love must be partaken and build with a great deal of commitment whether through friendships or the bond marriage. The love that will last will be one that summons us to sacrifice and change and growth. It will be a love that takes courage. It will be a love worth living for and so we will take up the surgeon's blade and cut away all that distorts and corrupts.

And so if you are young take very seriously the friendships you have ... love in such a way that you are constantly saying, "I care that you exist, I am so happy that you are alive and here, I laud and celebrate your being by my side."

And if you you are in a dating relationship, take it seriously and know that you have a chance to build something that will last your whole life ... that will be a well of life and a summons to remain fully alive. It will take sacrifice ... this is a concretely connected to Christ's admonition that if you are to find life you will have to lose it first.

And if you are struggling, do everything to hold on.

These are pretty random thoughts ... I don't know that they hold together and I am certain this is no comprehensive encouragement. (Again .... blogs are always incomplete right?)

Jazz music (and art in general)

2007-05-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Jazz music is like real poor people in the country on Sunday. People get dressed up and they don't have any money, but just that little hat with a flower on it. Just what that flower represents. Just a little something to make you special and make you sweet. That's jazz music." ... Wynton Marsilis

I just wish you could hear him say it.

Thank you all for helping me find good love songs! I am very slow in the creative department (probably finding the time once a month and usually then, I don't think to go back and work on something old) ... but I do have a vacation coming up pretty soon, so who knows? If something happens with my essay, I will share it with you all.

My list

2007-05-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

To inspire more input ... who doesn't like reading these lists ... I thought I would put what I had going into all this. (PS I talked with someone the other day who said he likes heartbreak songs ... that totally counts as a love song! Those are some of the best love songs).

Van Morrison - Old Old Woodstock (the whole family makes it into this one) & Tupelo Honey
Leftover Salmon - Lovin in My Baby's Eyes (this is the only song I know by them)
Nathan Mayberry - Nine Pound Hammer
Old 97s - Valentine
Nick Cave - Are you the one I have been waiting for? & Into My Arms
Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna
16 Horsepower - Coal Black Horses ("just as sure as that dogs gonna whine, in my heart no longer will I pine, just as sure as by evil you are torn, the sky will open up and an angel blow his horn and down comes Jesus, lookin so fine, just as sure as that gal she is mine)
Innocence Mission - Going Away

There may be more ... but that is all I have for now ...

Best Love Songs

2007-05-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

For the last 2 years (off and on ... ok really just once or twice) I have been trying to write an essay called the Transcendence of a Love song. I began it when I heard the Nick Cave's spoken word essay called the Secret Life of a Love Song. I really didn't agree with some of what he said, but I love how he thinks and talks. One of the great lines was that a love song is our attempt to throw a blanket over God so we can see his face.

Anyway, in order to write this thing ... which is about how real transcendence and meaning has almost completely been lost in our kitch, temporal, tinsal age and one of the only places left where we are actually hit upside the head by such things is in radio love songs. Not that this works everytime.

But, in order to write this, I need to get some help with finding these gems. They can be as old as the blues, as old as jazz ... or as new as indie rock. If you can burn them on a cd, that would be amazing. My plan has always been to write the essay and burn a cd of the greatest love songs ever ... put them together and give them away. That may still be a ways off ... but since I finally have a blog I wanted to get some help.

SO, at the least ... comment with your favorite love songs of all times (track titles and band/artist name).

thanks

PS ... here is the start of the essay ... I have more that is even better, but I will hold back.

"There are many things missing in our tiny modern days. These days feel like walking on shattering glass and hoping to stay ahead of the breakline. So many things have been discarded there is grave danger that our sheet of time won’t hold much longer. Or speaking of glass in another way, one might say that our time is one where a plate of glass has been laid over life, so as to preserve it and display it before our eyes like old dead things in a museum. Either way, one of the many things missing is transcendence and without it our society will continue to shatter into meaninglessness antiquity.

The absent transcendence produces in us a stiffening business that restlessly moves about without encompassing ideas or purpose. “Nothing large can be true or we couldn’t know it if it was,” we say with a cold rationality as we commit vivisection to another helpless animal, hoping to see the electricity of life so we can bottle it and drink it in our Rock Stars and Gatorade. But we at least still sing about something that lifts us from this empty economy of modern life. It is love. There is a little transcendence left in love."

Plantiga is good

2007-05-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Here is another quote from a different book (the last one was the one he wrote for students at Calvin College where he was president and it was called "Engaging God's World. This one is from his famous "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin".)

"All idolatry is not only treacherous but also futile. [Idolatry is best described as anything our "heart clings to" whether its fame, success, happiness or whatever]. Human desire, deep and restless and seemingly unfulfillable, keeps stuffing itself with finite goods, but these cannot satisfy. If we try to fill our hearts with anything besides the God of the universe, we find that we are overfed and undernourished, and we find that day by day, week by week, year after year, we are thinning down to a mere outline of a human being."

Jason's mind: "Well, that's something to think about, Jabez." [my new nickname for my heart]

Mind rental

2007-05-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is from a book by Cornelius Plantiga "We ordinarily think of a prostitute as someone who rents her body. But a person can also rent her mind for a high hourly rate, and she perverts it if she rents it because she wants to feel superior to the people who bag her groceries and park her car." Whoa to us in our world ... doesn't the vast majority of America prostitute their minds for just these purposes? By foregoing any ambition to education of character, isn't this all that we are left to do ... educate prostitutes who will be willing to pleasure the modern day kings. Ok, the image is getting to graphic for a normal blog post.

God help us incredible creations to accept and understand our highest purpose ... serving the one and only King of the whole earth. May our minds and bodies and hearts be given to you and used for beauty, justice and right relationships. Arm us with prudence, courage and self-control so we might see justice done and thank you that because of Jesus there is faith, hope and love.

Education

2007-04-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

"For educating characters you do not need a moral genius, but you do need a man who is wholly alive and able to communicate himself directly to his fellow beings. His aliveness streams out to them and affects them most strongly and purely when he has no thought of affecting them." Earlier he defines character as "the link between what this individual is and the sequence of his actions and attitudes." (Martin Buber in a speech called The Education of Character)

This is one of my all time famous quotes. It gives me hope and directs me in my pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge of many books and skills of rhetoric (quick mind and smooth tongue) are not central keys. When I read about a man "wholly alive" I imagine someone totally engaged in life, loving and caring for his family, meeting and seeing real people, taking care of responsibilities, actually praying and meeting with God. These are the things I am working on and pursuing.

(PS I do intend a second part to the beach walking ... just don't see myself having the time for another week or so).

TWO WAYS OF WALKING ON A BEACH

2007-04-18T13:50:00.001-07:00

Part I

This morning I was walking on the beach with Cate, my 2 year old and here are some of the things I saw.

1. Undeveloped male body (skinny, maybe 15) and an over-developed female who were awkwardly flirting with the waves and each other.
2. Underdeveloped male body who had likely wasted hundreds of hours with weights so his body could be covered in tiny, but firm looking, muscles. He was playing dance music and talking with four bikini women.
3. A shirtless man wearing black cowboy boots and black jeans with a brown paper covered bottle at his side. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but I did wonder if he was alive, he was so deep in the sand.
4. Club La Veda with "party with thousands" on the sign and for some reason, the kind of ad billboards that you see at baseball games. I am disturbed at what games might be played there ... the main supporters were Trojan Condoms and American Eagle.
5. I saw other things not so bad, family playing together, leathered old people stretching out for another smoke, more bikini women.

It wasn't until we started back that I realized my daughter never saw any of these things. She was completely transfixed with delight and fear and wonder at the ocean waves. Or was looking down at her feet walking on the soft wet sand. There was something incredible and unusual before her eyes and feet and so she directed all attention toward the beautiful curiosity we call the beach.

I followed her lead and stared into the vastness of blue water and down at our wandering feet and down at her brown head. Wonder began to do its work and I felt more childlike. My daughter and I were both walking along the beach, but it took me watching her to be pulled into the present moment, a precious moment that would be over and done with within the week. The sea is vast and always moving. The waves roll and toss in joyful patterns, lapping at our feet and it took my daughter Cate to show me how to enjoy them.

American Problems (are my problems)

2007-04-02T06:08:00.001-07:00

A theory I have of late is that economy and capitalism, or more precisely the greedy men making all the money, are quite happy to push Americans (and maybe the whole world) toward more and more autonomy and individual choice, labeling it freedom. They have reason to do this on both sides of the equation. First, this creates loads of new business, not only through overbuying due to choice, but the service economy is booming due to the impoverishment of "relational capital." As more of us seek to increase our financial capital we do so at the expense of friends and family which increases our need to buy dinner, entertainment, sex, counsel and even kindness.

And on the other side of things, if we are split off from any deep human connection, specifically our spouse and children, even in a philosophical way, we are of better use to the companies of employment. With no one staying home with the children (that is another booming service) we have nearly doubled the work force. Beyond that, with no philosophical or religious lines drawn to protect the family, coupled with our desperate need to own all the new technology and services, the new cars and new houses, we will overwork and travel and relocate and are at the mercy of the companies will. All this we call freedom and democracy.

Wendell Berry comments that feminism may very well have "liberated" women from the home, but it has enslaved both men and women to the heirarchy of corporations. The average woman of the past was never as inhumanly treated as the typical employee and also was never as unquestionably obedient.

But before you (or I) let American capitalism form itself into a demonic giant pulling strings and drunk with power, consider this: Capitalism is not such an all encompassing philosophy and the business men are not that interested or capable of that level of control. They just keep an eye out for any opportunity to make a buck.

But what is all this rambling anyway. I have only cleverly asserted manivolent ideas about a pejorative entity. I have just capitalized on the cheap amen that America has gone way wrong and that big business (i.e. Whitie or The Man) are the source of our problem. I have not offered one shred of insight into the real problem, us, human beings. Why do we do these things? Why do we create such a culture? How can we see it change or be part of the change?

This is the point that I think too many modern writers are unwilling to concede to Jesus and the Bible and the secondary sources that stream from it. Jesus usually doesn't seem that concerned about these clever assessments of the larger problems. Instead of getting high fives for seeing through the Roman Empire or even the system of priests, he was able to cut right to the human heart of the individual and by doing so is able to cut to our hearts as well. Let us be clear, Jesus did want priest's to stop eating up the widows and orphans, but he knew that the real problem was the evil sea rumbling inside their chest ... that evil systems weren't evil systems, but the creation of fallen men.

I imagine he would turn and chastise all of us who continue to serve "the man" so we can have everything for ourselves. It is us that have the problem in that we don't lose our lives to save it ... we are all spending money trying to save our lives and so we find them completely lost and enslaved (to sin and system and systems of sin). We are all in need of repentance if the world is to change ... we must give our lives to community and family in order to serve Jesus.

Oscar Arnulfo Romero

2007-03-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Oscar Arnulfo Romero was appointed archbishop of San Salvadore in 1977. It was a country of instability and civil war. By 1980, 3,000 people were dying every month. One of the priests serving under Romero was murdered because he was speaking on behalf of the poor against the landowners. This enraged Romero against the authorities and he began publicly denouncing their policies. He wrote President Carter, pleading with him to stop sending money and weapons to the El Salvador government. Every week, Romero made radio broadcasts in which he condemned the use of terror and government death squads and called on soldiers to disobey immoral orders. “Romero believed that the task of the church is to challenge sin in the world, which must involve attacking institutions that perpetuate sin. To ignore that sin is to be complicit in it and take the sin into the church itself.”

“On March 24th, 1980, he preached a sermon on 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul states that before the body can be raised it must die, like a grain of wheat being planted into the ground. He told the congregation that those who dedicate their lives to the service of the poor are like the grain of wheat and are promised a bountiful harvest. Finishing his sermon, Romero stepped up to the alter to say Mass and was shot through the heart by a sniper.”

(This story is from What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us? By Jonathan Hill; P. 167-168)

Tenant Farmers

2007-03-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

So Kris spoke on the parable of the tenants on Sunday and it really made me think about a lot. Here are some of my notes while I was listening. Kris said that even though the Israel listeners would have wanted to assume the vineyard was them ... Jesus was, not so subtly, pointing out that the vineyard was the whole earth and the life of God at work, God's promises and that Israel and now the church are only tenants or stewarts.

He went on to point out that hypocracy cannot stop the life and promise of God. All it leads to is empty hands and hell-bound christian leaders. God will wrench the vineyard from their hands and kill them. But the vineyard will thrive and change the world. Definite wake up call on reality and who is in charge.

If Israel is the tenants and now the church is the tenants ... we are to be caretakers of the life and promise of God in the earth. This connects right back to the beginning. Adam and Eve were stewards and caretakers, leaders on the earth, farming leaders of living things. But when they chose to self-serve and eat what wasn't theirs, the garden (the promise of a blessed world) is wrenched from their hands. It had to be wrenched from their hands, they were killers who would go on to gut the whole world in order to feed their hunger to be God, instead of embracing the reality of being a tenant farmer.

And now Jesus has made another change of hands. The others are all of us, but we must continually remind ourselves that we are stewards, that is reality and what is most profound is that we are stewards who are made in the image of our master ... we are created to follow him and see the life and promise of God go out into the earth.

Another take on the prodigal story

2007-03-20T05:08:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about posting some more thoughts on the parable that I preached on this past Sunday ... there was so much there I couldn't get to it all, but this morning I read what my friend Bethany wrote to support the small group leaders and thought it was amazing. She leads the small group ministry at our church and writes weekly prompts with questions to help the groups to converse over the text and ask good personal questions. Her retelling of the story is definitely worth reading. The only change I have made is taking out the questions. The text is Luke 15.

I. Jesus is slandered (in mutterings) by the Pharisees. It's an understandable muttering. They don't say he smells or that he goes against God, but this time they are concerned w/ his company. To them, he hasn't drawn a line in the sand where people for God stand over here, and those that don't stand over there. I can see how they perceive him as a 'fence-sitter'; the worst kind to those devout. His behavior is a slippery slope. And somehow I can hear their nagging parental threat, " you'll turn out to be like the friends you keep."

I don't think they are muttering out of pure concern for Jesus' future. I think somehow they are upset that they, the faithful and the reverent to God, aren't being affirmed by this holy man. I mean, really, they've been putting in there time here! And instead of getting to be his buddy, he wants to be buddies w/ people who haven't put their time in at all!

(Note: this is the same heart of the older brother, the heart of the entitled and the presumedly jilted)

II. Instead of giving the brats a good talking to, Jesus tells them some stories. He never ceases to amaze me w/ his patience. And these stories reveal his heart. His heart is something that the Pharisees were missing. They got His law and His morality, but it was his heart (where he loves from) that they were missing - explains why I think they were so hungry, and therefore cruel.

III. So, there's a father and two sons. The youngest son, not entitled to a lot, asks for what he is due. He sees that he can get something out of being in this family, and he decides he wants to get it now; to cut and run. He sees the immediate benefit of the temporal gift and wants it, not seeing or understanding the heart of what it means to be given his portion. His portion is the composite of his father's life. His father's toils, his honor, his wisdom. To ask for it in cash contradicts the very gift. The gift is getting his father, not the material wealth that comes along w/ it.

The father gives it to him. Not gives it to him in a lecture or a swift beating, but merely, gives him what he wishes. The whole time the older brother stands by. The younger brother goes and loses it. He sinks lower than any good jew. He compromises what is important. And in the throws of starvation, he remembers his father. He remembers that maybe his father would take him back as a hired hand. He doesn't expect anything more, nor does he show signs of mourning for having lost his father to only potentially gain a new employer. He makes up a speech, a deal, a compromise.

IV. But God isn't a god of compromise and he doesn't make deals. The father in this story doesn't either. Before the younger son can speak the proposition, the father runs to him and embraces him. There is no room for the employee relationship. There is only the father/son relationship. A regal man of wealth, a man of respect in front of the whole village makes passionate spectacle of himself. There is no withholding. There is no pride that separates the two of them. Seeing the compassion that his father has, the son for the first time recognizes that it wasn't the money that he wanted and then lost, but it was his father, his relationship that he squandered. Here, the son understands the heart of his father, not one to hold something over his head, but a father who only cares about reconciliation.

VI. And then there's the older brother. The one who was obedient, and who never left. The one who put his time in. He comes home from working and there is a great party. Right there there is a contradiction for him. He is a worker, he sweats his faithfulness and somewhere there's a party that started without him. And then he finds out it's for his loser little brother who humiliated his father and his family. And he gets rewarded w/ a party! So the older son refuses to join in the celebration on principle. Just like the Pharisees, he is standing on that side of the line, indignant that his father is partying w/ a man who blasphemed the family.

But when the father comes out to him (notice the father searched both of them out into reconciliation) we find that it's not that the brother is back, but it's the private feelings of the forsaken that are revealed. It's not about the little scoundral, it's about the older brother not feeling celebrated enough. He feels he deserves affirmation. He misses the heart of the father as much as the little brother.

And instead of giving it to him, he gives the older son what he desires: affirmation. And then he invited him to be reconciled to him, and his brother.

Lent Reader

2007-03-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

Have you guys read any of this? Its the reader we have for sale in the bookstore. Truth be told, I didn't buy one until yesterday ... I thought I could just read the ones for sale ... but once I realized I was 80 pages in and really liking it, I thought it wrong to keep reading a book that was for sale.

Anyway, I knew I would like the entries by Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, Lewis, etc ... but there are tons of writers I have never heard of who are powerful to read. Stephanie, there is actually a Geoffrey Hill poem in here (Lachrimae Amantis).

The one I read this morning is by Barbara Brown Taylor. She writes about the Christian temptation to shift the killing of Christ off to the Jews and Romans, as long as they remain the villians, then we are off the hook. "Unfortunately, this is not a story that happened long ago in a land far away. Sons and daughters of God are killed in every generation. They have been killed in holy wars and inquisitions, concentration camps and prison cells. They have been killed in Cape Town, Memphis, El Salvador and Alabama. The charges against them have run the gamet, but treason and blasphemy have headed the list, just as they did for Jesus. He upset those in charge at the courthouse and the temple. He suggested they were not doing their jobs. He offered himself as a mirror they could see themselves in, and they were so appalled by what they saw that they smashed it. They smashed him every way they could."

She goes on to write about how dangerous it is for religion and politics to become mixed up ... but just before we get off the hook again (saying, but I am no Caiaphas or Pilate or Herod) she cuts in; "They may have been the ones who gave Jesus the death sentence, but a large part of him had already died before they ever got to him -- the part Judas killed off, then Peter, then all those who fled. Those are the roles with our names on them--not the enemies but the friends. ... Peter said. 'We weren't friends, exactly. Acquantances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together. For the same company, I mean. Not together, just near each other. My desk was near his. I really don't know him at all.'"

And this was the part that hit me the most: "What happened then goes on happening now. In the presence of his integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his fierce love for God and for us, our own hardness of heart is revealed. Take him out of the room and all those things become relative. I am not much worse than you are nor you than I, but leave him in the room and there is no room to hide. He is the light of the world ... A cross and nails are not always necessary. There are a thousand ways to kill him, some of them as obvious as choosing where you will stand when the showdown between weak and the strong comes along [Judas chose the saftey of militia, guns and handcuffs] others of them as subtle as keeping your mouth shut when someone asks you if you know him."

Then, since she is writing this to be presented on Good Friday, she concludes: "Today, while he dies, do not turn away. Make yourself look in the mirror. Today no one gets away without being shamed by his beauty. Today no one flees without being laid bare by his light."

Poem about the Magi and Herod

2007-03-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote this when I was preparing for a sermon on this text in Matthew.

Herod and Magi
Wandering nomads from the east. Like gypsies but more respectable. Like the Dali Lama coming to Bush to give him advise. And they come.

I see them with my two eyes and wonder at their search.

God did you send for these men or did they wander off through their own searching. Did you want them to come or did they come and you let them?

And what of this king who acted like the devil. Was he even a man? What possessed him to try to destroy the hopes of Abraham, David and Isaiah. The promise of messiah was so woven into the People of God and yet Herod the great would destroy it all.

Is this the evil end of a man who sought power and control his entire life ... to have as a last act the slaying of Jewish children with the thought that he would kill God's King? With one last thought of overthrowing the plans of God and having assalted the Great One take His seat?

What is it in him that is like us? Are there times when we should look to the skies or deep in the earth or into the heart of our brother with wonder, searching out a glimpse of the King ... but instead we seek to destroy that look in our blind search for more power and control.

God is at work in the earth, but do we look with our wideawake eyes and open up to joy and gladness at the wonder of God's glory ... or are we disturbed and angry and murderous?

Helpful thought from Chekhov's phsyc ward

2007-03-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

This is one of my all-time favorite dialogues (from Ward Six by Chekhov). It is between a doctor and a mad man (who lives in Ward six). The doctor sees him to be the only intelligent man in the town so he finds himself going down for a visit more and more often.

Doctor: Peace and contentment do not lie outside a man, but within him.

Madman: What do you mean?

Doctor: The ordinary man looks for good or evil in external things: an open carriage, a study, while the thinking man looks for them within himself.

Madman: Go preach that philosophy in Greece, where it's warm and smells of oranges; it's not suited to the climate here. Who was it I was talking to about Diogenes? Was it you?

Doctor: Yes, it was I ... yesterday.

Madman: Diogenes didn't need a study or a warm room, it was hot there anyhow. He could sleep in a barrel and eat olives and oranges. But you bring him to Russia to live and he'd be begging for a room, and not just in December, but in May. He'd be doubled up with cold.

Doctor: No. One can be impervious to the cold, as to any other pain. ... The wise man, or even the merely rational, thinking man, is distinguished precisely by his disdain for suffering; he is always content, and nothing ever surprises him.

Madman: Then I must be an idot, for I suffer, am discontented, and continually surprised by human baseness. ... All I know is that God created me out of warm blood and nerves--yes! And organic tissues, if it is viable, must react to every irritation. And I do react! To pain I respond with tears and outcries, to baseness with indignation, to vileness with disgust. In my opinion this is exactly what is known as life. The lower the organism, the less sensitive it is, and the more feeble its response to irritation; the higher it is, the more receptive, and the more energetic its reactions to reality. ... You must excuse me, I am neither a sage nor a philosopher."

He then breaks into a massive critique of Stoicism saying that it congealed 2000 years ago and has not progressed one particle and that it was always for the minority because it never took into account the majority of people who are in need and want of human things like food and shelter. It is for the wealthy academic and no one else. That's not even the best part ... its just so long I can't type more. He finishes by saying that all of the Doctors philosophy is really just convenience allowing him to lift no finger for other human beings ... "you have nothing to do, your conscience is clear, and you feel you're a sage ... No sir, this is not philosophy, not thought, not breadth of vision, but laziness, pretense, mental torpor ... "

The sad thing is that this danger of splitting mental thoughts and ideas from flesh and blood is a danger of all academic work, all rational, all philosophy and even theology. The Incarnation and the prophets before him remind us that we are to respond to irritants and outcries and that our minds must be alive and human.

Figs (another old poem, 2001)

2007-03-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

Where is Bob Dylan?
Anyone to feel,
Anyone to imagine,
Anyone with strong words?

Young Eliot in the doorway,
But he will not take the step.
And we are the same,
Except lacking such daring imagination.

We repress the calling Christ,
Our disturbing Messiah.
We are uneasy and harassed,
But we pretend security.

Will we find our way?

The End
Is always coming because we don’t learn our lesson.

And in our end will a prophet come?
Will anyone prophesy our destruction
And offer a new beginning?
Is Moses among us?
Will anyone imagine something better?

And true peace is always offered
And this is for our Return.

The sword comes
Because what we think is life is death.
What we think is God is our own order,
Our own arrangement of things.

But in our end, Ezekiel offers resurrection.
Jesus feeds dry bones his own blood and flesh.

We must decide
We must leave our nets and follow
Leave my father in the boat
Leave my dead father.

We must bear fruit.
Please, let figs grow
Give us figs for our Lord.

Otherwise we will be cursed forever.
Otherwise we will be cast into the sea.

Feathered Pilgrims

2007-03-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

Something dark is about in our souls. We wander aside and run like chickens with empty heads from snakes in dusty roads to thorns and hornets on either side. Our heart will not rest, but flees in terror ... in the wrong direction. The fire that blazes is cold and dark like the longest night. But then, turning we are stopped and flattened. Our eyes rise to the hill and at just that moment the morning sun breaks in reds and pinks, pouring its light down on us tiny things ... and suddenly the snakes are the ones in terror and we are in presence and heat. We swim in morning glory and long for this dawning to destroy forever the sleepless nights. It would seem our brains are filled with this light as long as we walk its way. The sun is coming down the hill to meet us and does meet us (though not in its fullness) and we are revived. We see the path before us and we must focus on our journey. We must walk and not falter. This path seems long and other yellow pilgrims are coming alongside. There are some who are teetering, there are some afraid and shuddering. We must speak and walk, we must carry each other as much as words and friendship can ... and we must all walk this path.

God, may your glory inspire our feathered brains with the dawning of the morning sun, with the reds and pinks and golds of glorious morn, still distant, but coming closer.

Lenten Journey

2007-02-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

Just a short list of observations:

1. More easily brought to tears (in reading or watching or talking ... i was having trouble not crying when watching Nemo with my kids, and I have seen it a few times).

2. More drawn to silence and more aware when I talk too much.

3. More aware, in general, of myself as a person in relationship to other people and to God. More aware of anger and frustration and more quick to ask God for help and forgiveness.

I definitely feel it. I am glad I am participating in Lent and that the church has something like this.

I am also, looking at the long road (Lent is almost 6 weeks!!) and thinking it is a long road. But I do feel like it will end in something glorious and this is the only road to that for me. I must go this road so that I may enter into a renewed life with God and with others, as a pastor, as a worshipper, as a husband and a father.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

2007-02-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

So I just picked up a reader of Mr. Chesterton and it is incredible. First essay is the story form of the shift from paganism to Christian gothic to modern realism. "The old Greeks summoned godlike things to worship their god. The medieval Christians summoned all things to worship theirs, dwarfs and pelicans, monkeys and madmen. The modern realist summoned all these million creatures to worship their god; and then have no god for them to worship. Paganism was in art a pure beauty; that was the dawn. Christianity was a beauty created by controlling a million monsters of ugliness; and that in my belief the zenith and the noon. Modern art and science practically mean having the million monsters and being unable to control them; and I will venture to call that the disruption and the decay. ... Christianity, with its gargoyles and grotesques, really amounted to saying this: that a donkey could go before all the horses of the world when it was really going to the temple."

And then he picks up in the next essay with a criticism of modern decor. He is thankful for being laid up in bed so he can star at the empty ceiling rather than the ridiculous wallpaper surrounding him. (He is actually pondering the possiblity of using a broomstick to draw on the ceiling). The man is a Brit from 1910 and he says the following about wallpaper: "I found the wall-paper to be already covered with very uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wall-papers, I think, when it says 'Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.'"

There is tons more hilarity ... he goes on about the evil in the world and he says it is never better described than in the horror of having to listen to loud music while eating dinner at a resteraunt. I should include more, but for time sake, this is all I got for now. I expect Chesterton will come up now and again though.

Something

2007-01-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

Why is it that struggle induces sleep ... passivity, longing to sit still and think about nothing or sit and listen to music. I think it is the weight of thoughts that weigh us down at time ... But honestly that is seldom true, thoughts alone are nothing ... no real weight and no real lift. It is life and reality and people that weigh us down or lift us up.

Mind splits as I ponder my place,
heart and water spill around and slosh out,
wandering feet would like to walk in a forest,
Something peaceful and pretty
even if it is cold.

But instead I am here and I must find my place right here.
This is always the solution,
Escape is rarely a solution ... only when you are on your way to murder
or theive or pillage,
should you flee with quick feet.

All other times you must plod directly into life,
whatever life will meet you.
You must believe that even if the times are dark and cool,
Even it is is many nights that pass before there is a spouting,
You must believe.
God will grow you if you believe.

Plant yourself, one foot after another and God will give increase.

This isn't all, it never is, but it is a big part.
It is a hard lesson to learn in our time of constant illusion
and corporate day dreams,
When imagination can actually be your problem.

God take our imaginations,
right now they are worth less than dung.

May we have dreams of your kingdom and seek it with sweat and tears.

May the gospels grant substance to our tireless imagination,
Tempered with the prophets and the epistles and the Old stories.

Old Notes (same Jason)

2007-01-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

I am reorganizing my personal library (hopefully to make it easier to reference and find things) and just came across a note in my copy of "The Prophets", by Heschel. Its on Lee University paper, so it must have been while living in Cleveland just after I graduated. It has two things written on it with numbers out beside them:

1. "Ideas are dangerous, but are often treated lightly and glibbly ... especially in academic circles. There is hardly such a thing as a "merely academic" discussion. "The killing fields of Cambodia come from philosophical discussions in Paris." (Paul Johnson)"

Yep, I still agree. I think that quote is from when I attempted to read Johnson's "Modern Times" a giant history of our centure (1500 pages or so) ... maybe I should pick that one back up. It sounds good.

2. "You no longer have to be brilliant, intelligent and elite to come to the conclusion that life is meaningless ... that message is spoon-fed to millions."

Yep, that's still true as well ... except people seem to care even less that this is happening. Well I add to that as a further wake up call from Abraham Heschel "Are we alone in the wilderness of self, alone in this silent universe, of which we are part, and in whihc we feel at the same time like strangers? It is [precisely] such a situation that makes us ready to search for a voice of God in the world of man: the taste of utter loneliness; the discovery that unless God has a voice, the life of the spirit is a freak"

God help us.

Augustine and Everything After (by the Jason Crows)

2006-12-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

Aren't blogs the right place for woefully cheesy titles like that?

Let me preface by saying that I imagine many people will find this stuff very boring so don't read it if you don't want to. Blogs are for thoughts and these are definitely thoughts I have. On the men I talk about (Augustine, Luther and Calvin in particular), I automatically have great respect for well-repected men ... what I mean is that I am pretty new into this information and processing it as I can, but know I am far from getting the full picture. I intend to do a lot more reading on this topic and hopefully will be more estute as I go.

I have found that if I wanted to I could spend hours and hours writing and re-writing and I don't have the time for that ... so here is random thoughts on church history part 1 and I will either clean some of it up later with an additional post or make a more complete statement.

So I have almost completed two pocket history(s) related to Christianity; A History of Theology and a History of the Church. I love reading this stuff because I love seeing where all the modern thoughts came from and seeing how some of them are not new even when we think they are or they are new and ridiculous because of being new.

The biggest trouble I am currently having is figuring out what the truth is with Augustine's Grace vs. Free Will discussions and with Luther and Calvin's formulations of salvation. I honestly don't think they are straightforwardly dealing with the reality of our world or with the reality of the scriptures. They both get some grace because they formulated their thoughts as reactions to heretical thoughts ... Augustine to the british monk Pelagious and Luther and Calvin to the out of their mind at the time Roman Catholics. All of them want God to have absolute sovereignty and human beings to have absolute depravity. The only free will we have, according to Augustine, is the choosing which sin we want to pursue.

I understand the philosophical problem completely ... well as much as someone who has never taken a philosophy class. The philosophical picture needs to be black and white and very tidy ... so if God is to be in absolute control then that must include control over human will, individual or otherwise. The formulation becomes that we are completely passive while God's grace is active in saving, redeeming and everything else. Luther even says that repentance is a gift ... which follows right along with Augustine's argument.

So, it comes down to the elect and the damned, predestination or what Augustine called monergism (which I think refers to the fact that only God has any power). But, what about the Bible? All Christians are quick to say that you can only get so far with philosophy so why do all these guys keep going back to it before the Scriptures. They seem to figure it all out philosophically and then try and make the scriptures support it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that philosophy is bad in any way and the people that push for only learning from the Bible or only using biblical language get pretty confused as well. There are times when philosophy and rational discussion is our only recourse to make sense of the world and even our task as followers of Christ. BUT, these giant systems of interpretation that have greatly influenced the church, especially Protestant thought, don't seem to line up with the Scriptures very well at all.

I mean, what about the constant call for repentance. Why do all God's men, Jesus included, always walk around telling people repent? How does this system fit, in any way, with the story of the Prodigal Son? Can you imagine Augustine's view of God (at least in this aspect) being the same father Jesus describes running down the road to meet the lost son and falling on his neck with tears ... and then turning to the older son and inviting him in as well? I imagine if Augustine had to re-write the story it would have to include a little less choice on the son's part.

But it seems the biggest problem with all this is the obvious one ... how do you establish any real human responsibility if absolute power and control and action is given to God. That is what set off Pelagious in the first place ... coming into town and finding a lot of indecent behavior and then reading Confessions with Augustine saying that decent behavior (or self-control) was a gift from God ... so instead of putting forth moral effort, we are left to wait like a bunch of island charismatics for the gift of continence.

And then the same rap could be said about Calvinists ... don't know how true it really is, but i have heard that Protestants didn't do any missionary work for nearly 200 years after Calvin worked out double predestination. There is just no way that fits with the Bible.

A Christmas Poem (2005)

2006-12-26T05:54:00.000-08:00

I wrote this poem last year and gave it to Tara as one of her Christmas presents ... but I thought it would make a nice post for the holidays.

I don't know anything about formating text ... but everything is supposed to be centered and the scriptures at the beginning are supposed to be smaller font and act as quote introductions like Eliot uses in all his poems (except he usually uses quotes in latin or french)

"As to the exact day or hour, no one knows it ...
be constantly on watch! Stay awake!
Mark 13:32-33

"Peace is my farewell to you,
my peace is my gift to you;"
John 14:27

Snowfall is a soft sound---a softening sound---smoothing
out the dissonance of an auto-crowded city.
Does anyone listen during these quiet sky-sent moments?

I whispered to my lover,
something about the mood of the moment.
I spoke in hushed speech,
preserving as much of the silence as I could,
but I was excited.

(whisper)
"Into the darkness of winter,
falls a precious white.
Into the blackness of the longest night,
is sent us something pure.
When ugly things bare their teeth
and wicked men attempt to hide their dirty deeds,
a savior is born."

We sat there a long time,
still throughout our entire bodies.
Except for the quivering hairs,
the listening hairs inside our ears.
They were enjoying the sound of the snow.

We had our blankets piled up,
to offer us protection from the winter cold,
the white cold,
the silent cold.
As everything was being covered outside,
we lay covered and quiet.

But we did not sleep.
No, we were much alive.

And then there was a rush of wind,
and a voice, almost audible,

saying,
"The war was won,
but the war is still fought,
Men love war but God loves life.

PEACE ON EARTH

PEACE ON EARTH

Peace on earth."

With this last line singing loudly in our ears,
we decided to go and find our children.

They also laid under layers of blankets,
but with open eyes.
They were watching and they were waiting.
Little had they slept,
refusing to forgot their task.

With tired, but joyful eyes
they watched and waited
for Christmas morning to come.

the tension of the age

2006-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

The biblical account of the earth really makes sense to me. The old story about creation being blessed and then given to human beings so they could wisely stewart and care for it. And then when they rebelled and sinned everything fell downward and death and darkness began to grow where there used to be blessing.

This is our world. Our world is covered in both beauty and terror. there is light so rich and full that no imagination is wild enough to contain it, there is dark so evil and destructive that no shrewd wisdom can overcome it.

This world of ours is very complex. It is so bright and vibrant, full of rich colors and diversity ... and brilliant inventions. Even within the world of humans I am constantly astounded by the creativity of human beings, from the cd player that reads code and translates it into music, to the music itself. From the jet liner to the literature of the brilliant men and women scattered over the earth and throughout time.

But in those very same places (the earth and humanity) there is a terrible darkness, pockets of fear and evil machinations. People using their creative power to control and manipulate others so they can have transient pleasures. Even the world itself seems to be turning on inward with violence, destroying anyone in its path. There is flying sickness and death. There is pain and loss and suffering. And there is just void and unknowing. There is emptiness and desperation. There is loneliness.

This is the reality that must be held in our minds as we look upon the old gospel story. The good news that Jesus is a great warrior, who in God's strange way fought evil and death itself through suffering and dying innocently ... and that his walking out of the tomb was an open door to new creation, restoration of the blessedness of the old creation ... that the Creator God had found a way to work within the messy world itself to bring about a light and life that would win over darkness and death ... it is more breath-taking for facing the whole story.

Josef Pieper Quote

2006-12-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

"We have, he writes on one occasion, 'lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.' That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort."

In order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. This is profound and rubs against most current understanding of knowledge. Knowledge is only knowledge when it is lived. You can know something, but you only know it as much as it affects the way you live or informs the way you live. Truth of this sort places a demand on us and if we say "no" to the demand with our actions we can't claim to know the truth at all.

Heschel says it this way: "Deed and thought are bound into one ... Spiritual aspirations are doomed to failure when we try to cultivate deeds at the expense of thoughts or thoughts at the expense of deeds." Then he asks a question to further make his point "Is it the artist's inner vision or his wrestling with the stone that brings about a work of sculputre?" The art is not disconnected from the artist's mental vision, but it also will never be art if the mental vision isn't brought forth through a physical medium. "Right living is like a work of art, the product of a vision and of a wrestling with concrete situations."

This is it.

Merton's prayer for us: "Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice."

Life vs. worthless fantasy

2006-11-30T13:24:00.000-08:00

"I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood." (the artsy fellow from "Phantastes" by George McDonald)

The hero or anti-hero is a romantic who sets out to wander in a fantasy land on his 21st birthday. He sets out like any young punk, full of himself and ambitious to share his gifts with the world ... you know write a great novel, paint a great picture, save a few women. By the end of his journey he has finally learned that none of this was the way forward. "He that will be a hero, will barely be a man" so full of fanciful dreams of glory and fame there is no place to walk on the actual road touching his feet. I have been in that place. I have spent many afternoons with my head full of vain dreams of glory and fame. Far from actually thinking about the world that needs saving, my time is consumed by thoughts of me being the one to save it.

It has been only recently (within the last few years) that I am starting to understand the calling to be a doer of my work. To take what is within my path and carry it forward. To keep my hand to the plow and make sure the rows are straight. Not that this is always as obvious as I would like ... but I am attempting to live within my body and not just in my head.

Life must be lived to be meaningful. Thought and deed must go hand in hand. I have found that the artist and the intellectual and maybe the mystic, have a common struggle with these connections. Contemplating, thinking, feeling, are often a way of looking at life and it is hard to look and live at the same time.

There is a tendency to miss one for the other. We must always use our skills of thinking or feeling or contemplating to work with the stuff of reality. Otherwise we easily drift into worthless fantasy.

Old Poem

2006-11-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

This one reminds me of chaotic jazz or "post-rock" in that it is mostly word noise that occasionally breaks into understandable melody only to fall away into noise again ... the noise makes the understandable bit more powerful and even the noise seems to carry with it real (though unpolished) possibility.

By flip up top of radar guns down,
fly up low and down.
meat cut and out of bourbon and flying solo,
fly and fall and flip and gallows swing,
if fifty by twenty-two were to fall again
we would love a break of two fit setters
find us a bird bright from burning sun
scorching birds and falling flies
flicking love again with an evil snail
slow moving and licking earth,
falling and falling down farther,
now in a hole
now a digger . .. will I arise,
for a ground opens up
swallows and falls and loves
cuts and draws and kills
when will this over it again I under it again.
and then my face will smile and crack with widening gaps,
finding another hole in my side
another missing part
I can't know anything and won't decide.
like a miserable bird on the wire,
falling and flying and losing my mind
mid down and fall sowing the seed of life.
over a multitude of yellow words I fade
and peal and no more decals
no more nose, no more eyes
empty hearts dripping solid liquid
hard blood and dust and flying squalls
no quail today, but there is plenty of foul.
what will you have. .. be it dirty chickens
or pigeons or rabbit, hare high and hare low.
ears hearing and dying for a taste,
tongue tasting and dying for a listen,
eyes longing to smell and nose wishing to see,
only the hands are happy with their seeing,
and smelling and hearing. hearing hands will find busy
works to live on
all alone in the dirty ground of nowhere.
falling in and flying out, when I will find a looking
where is my looking,
where is my looking.

Biology and Morality

2006-11-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

There is the greatest need for a larger comprehensive view of reality. It seems that with the rise of scientific thought, perhaps especially when science turned toward history with Darwin and social evolution, has given way to accepting the way things happen in history and the way human beings are apt to behave as the main vehicle for deciding how they ought to behave.

I guess even the scientific method is being used to adduce morality and since we cannot properly observe mete-physical truth (meta being an important descriptor), we are left to simply catelogue all possible behaviors and their apparent health risks. What is more we do all this in relation to the individual, ignoring society, or in relation to the collective, ignoring the individual. But what if the whole idea is bunk ... what if scientists are simply asking questions they have no capacity to answer.

We must return and further the pre-Enlightment thought of the "Dark Ages" which sought to see reality in both its visible and invisible happenings. There really is such a thing as love however difficult it is to physically observe (sex can be an action informed by love, but until we understand the invisible, emotional, theological reality we will not properly act).

We cannot look to biology to find morality or we will find nothing ... or what has only started to breakdown into nothingness, the meaningless drive toward progress. Progress in what sense has always been the question. With heightened analysis of of biological health it has become a drive to produce longevity and pleasure ... but in all honestly both of those words need more definition than science can give.

Love (a poetic/theological attempt)

2006-09-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

Love is both more violent and less so than any tired modern description.

THere was this thought rushing around
and darting in and out of my ears
and up through my skull
like the busting blood of those naked
celtic warriors, chewing their drugs
screaming and holding axes.

But my thought is about love.
I see that the world is lost without love
and is actually upheld on love and by love.

The problem is the american romantic bubble gum,
shiny paper, pulpy love that goes around these days
and passes for love. Or the tired physical love that
needs diet pills and photo shop and deceitful moans.
Our love has grown false and superficial and so has our humanity.

THe love I am talking about has nothing to do with all that.
I am talking about the love between a farmer and his plot of dirt,
I am talking about the love between a Father and his son,
I am talking about the love between a woman and a good meal,
I am talking about the love between a man and his wife
and the love between a woman and her husband,
I am talking about the love between a child and wonder,
I am talking about the love between God and his creation.
I am talking about the love between creation and their GOD.

THis love lifts up and fills with purpose.
This love knows duty and responsibility.
This love has a plan. This love will fight and pray and smile
and enjoy and suffer and long and bless.
This love will hate. This love will hate the enemies and
naysayers and all that stand against,
between and opposed.

UNLESS there is a possibility that these enemies can be
brought into this love. Then there will be hope
and grace and long-suffering and forgiveness.

This is love.