When Did I Stop Believeing in Magic?

I saw the first installment of the Chronicles of Narnia yesterday with Three Nails and I found myself holding back tears on a number of occasions. The interesting thing is that it was not at the "emotional" times. It was not the plot that shook me up. It was the setting and the portrayal of Narnia. Everytime the Pevensies stepped through the wardrobe I was overwhelmed becuase I found myself watching a well imagined world of fantasy. A world that I know does not exist and yet a world that I believe does exist. In many of Lewis' books he depicts a supernatural/spiritual world as a foil to our natural/physical world. A world that may not be true, but portrays truth all the same. As I was watching this particular depiction, I started remembering all of the things that I believed when I was little. All of the imaginary things that I later found out did not exist. It made me sad becuase I knew that I had stopped believing in magic.

I worship a God who is beyond what I can test by taste and touch and smell. I worship a God who is king over all of the universe and over all the heavens. I worship a God who has created all that I see out of nothing and this God does not make sense if I ascribe strictly to the world of "reality."

I was touched by so many parts of the Narnia because it reminded me that I do believe in things unseen. I cried becuase I do believe in the deep magic that has set me free from death.

I hope that I never forget because depression and death are all that await me in the world of "pure science."

Feeding the Poor

Dreamer gave me a call the other day to say he was out of jail and to ask for some money.

Dreamer is someone I met a couple of years ago who has been living on the streets since he was 14. He has a history of drug abuse and has had a very rough go at life. Dreamer stayed with us at Jane Street for a couple months before heading down to Florida for the winter (he spent Christmas with my family at my grandmother's...that was interesting). I have run into him on multiple occasions since then that have been a little more than "coincidence." God's hand has been on our relationship since it began. Until this week, he had never asked me for money.

He called to ask for some money for some basic needs stuff. Of course, being the good Christian steward of my money, I asked him if there were things I could buy him so that I did not have to send money. I have been conditioned to never give money because of course they (by "they" I mean the homeless and destitute) are going to buy drugs and alcohol. So, instead we give food and blankets and other necessities so that they can use the money other people give them for drugs and alcohol...but at least our conscience is clear.

I am sick of trying to justify that model against the model that Christ gave us. Give to those who ask of you...There are no stipulations. Sure, you can tell me that that was a different time under different circumstances as today, but the reality is that the command was to love and to give generously. The truth is that I have plenty of addictions that I use my money to feed daily. They may not be drugs and alcohol, they may not appear so sinister, but they are destroying me all the same.

What would happen if we started spending some of the money we use to feed our shopping, food, and entertainment addictions to actually give to the poor in an unpatronizing way. There is no way that I could talk to Dreamer today and tell him that I will send him anything but money and it not be completely patronizing. Here is a man whom I know, a man who comes to my house every time he is in town, a man that was totally honest with me as to why he got thrown in prison, a man who until now has never asked me for money, a man who greatly desires to be free of his addiction. God forbid, but I am going to give him some money. I can't keep self-righteously judging everyone that I see on the street anymore. It is getting hard to sleep at night.

Quote "Stepping Out in Faith"

The idea of "stepping out in faith" has come up in a couple different contexts this past week and I it is intrinsically connected with the concept that in our spiritual walks we meet God halfway. I have heard people talk about this so many times and I admit that I have described life like this myself, but I am coming to realize how deceptive and destructive this mindset is.

I have noticed in my interactions with my friends that this kind of thinking leads to one of two ends: agnosticism/atheism or depression. Here is my line of thinking...

In my experience there is some point in the life of every Christian (who believes that God meets them halfway) when they bottom out. They begin to feel that God is not there. In my experience, this leads to one of two places, either they believe that they are faithfully halfway and God is not there to meet them or they trust that God is faithfully halfway and they must just not be able (as hard as they may try) to make up their half of the trip. The first leads one to disown God because who wants a God that does not keep his end of the bargain. The second leads to depression because no matter how hard we try we never make it where we are convinced we should be able to go.

It may take some decades to get to the point of crashing and falling into one or the other, but I am convinced it will happen given enough time in our brokenness.

Instead of this model, I believe (and this has been a freeing notion to more than just me) that we are bound in our sin and are not capable of going halfway. I believe that we are not even capable of going anywhere and it is God that must come the whole way to us. That is why Jesus came and died for us, because God knew he had to do it all and Christ provided the way for him to reach out completely to us in our deadness and sin. God comes the whole way and sets us free and it is him alone that carries us into glory with him, not of our own work, but solely by his.

Life Together in Intimacy

Let me tell a story about my mom and dad...

My dad likes to sit in his den in the basement and be alone much of the time he is at home. For whatever reason he is most comfortable downstairs. Sometimes he even watches the same thing on his TV in the basement that we are watching in the living room. This is not every night, but many times this is the case. On nights such as these, he will come upstairs, at some point, and sit down with us. We will be sitting on the couch and he will sit down on the love seat which makes an "L" with the couch. He will sit there all night with us if he is left alone. However, most times, my mom will encourage him to come and sith "with us," meaning on the couch with us. He always does so and, inevitably, will get cramped or uncomfortable and want to leave. He will typically go downstairs within the next 30 minutes.

My thoughts...

My dad probably wants to have time by himself, but will come up and spend time with his family at least once or twice a night (more that most fathers I have encountered) becuase he loves us and wants to be with us. To what degree should we let him give what he is comfortable giving? Is it our job to encourage him to give more or is it our job to gladly receive what he offers and pray and hope that God will draw him out?

I ask these things and wonder becuase sometimes I feel like my dad on the love seat and sometimes I feel pressured to get off the love seat and give more. I have always felt that giving more was what I was supposed to do. I should work harder to give more because that is what God wants, right? That is what the good Christian does, right? As a Christian, I am expected to do more that I want and to give of myself until there is nothing left. What if I am tired and exhausted of giving more and just want to be allowed to stay on the couch once in a while? Am I a bad Christian? Am I a bad boyfriend? I feel like the answer is Yes! I am a terrible boyfriend and a terrible Christian. Relationships are all about giving of ourselves and valuing the other greater than ourselves and serving and giving and dying for one another...but it has been me who have been attempting the doing and thus I am exhausted and disparaged.

I feel, deep down, that it must be God who is doing the doing and not me, but I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how to let myself be who I am becuase that person is not good enough. What I am ever more coming to understand is that that person is never good enough. It must be God in us who works and moves us to love others and to die to ourselves, but what is life supposed to look like while that is not happening?

I am torn. Part of me wants to give all of myself and be the most amazing boyfriend ever (esp. as thoughts of being a husband continue to form) and the other part of me is tired of being-or trying to be-someone I am not because I am not the best boyfriend ever...Sometimes I just want to be left to sit on the love seat, but Jesus never stayed on the love seat...

...and Kathryn deserves much more than a man who just wants to say on the love seat.

The Trinity

Here is something I just wrote in a paper for my chruch history class and I wanted to post it for comment and feedback. This is a bit of an amalgam of some of the things I have read as well as some of the recent conversations I have had. I am interested to hear what people have to say about it (if you do).

So, as I understand it, there is the Godhead who in his perfect unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has, in his infinite love, made room in his community for his Creation. The purpose of this Creation is to participate in the reciprocal, mutually giving and receiving relationship that is perfectly expressed in the Trinity itself. As we join in relationship with the triune God through the person and work of Jesus Christ we begin to properly relate one another and with the rest of Creation (not just people, but the world we relate within) with the final end of rejoining in the perfect perichoresis, or dance, of God and Creation.

A New Dichotomy

It has been too long since my last post...too much time spent doing classwork and not enought time spent thinking about it. However, I was at a discussion with Tony Jones (an author involved in the emergent movement) tonight, and it got me thinking about the prevailing transition to "both/and" from "either/or." I have always been a fan of this switch, but tonight has me questioning the "both/and" understanding. What if it isn't a "both/and" either, but a "yes, but."

Perhaps what I hear most from the emergent conversation is that friendship is the heart of good theology, that the conversation is truth, and that the truth of the gospel is found as it is made incarnate in culture. For the most part I agree with this and much of what is said in emergent circles, but I feel like no one there is willing to say that there is an absolute truth. Even though I don't believe that anyone can fully understand the immense truth of God, I do believe that the immense truth of God is absolute. There is so much fear that the idea of an absolute truth will be oppressive and will be forced upon people and I think it is a reaction to something that has occured more than it is a reality. Sure, when we believe we have the absolute truth of God figrued out bad things happen, but that is not a reason to disregard the idea of it all together. If we do then we tend to find ourselves having a conversation about an amorphous good instead of a conversation about the truth of God. Foundations are not bad, Jesus talks about them more than once, it is when we place our theology on the wrong foundation that we trip ourselves (and too many other people along with us) up.

All this is to say that I was thinking about the idea of looking at situations and theology as a "yes, but" instead of a "both/and" and here is what I mean. When someone asks me if there are requirements to be a Christian, I no longer want to try and dodge the question and try to convince them that that is the wrong question. Instead, I want to say, "Yes there are, but I do not completely understand what they entail and I am not as concerned with how you measure up to them as I am about who you are and how you are doing."

Wow...

...its good to be home. Great trip, I missed everyone so much.

Prague and the Bone Church

Took a day trip out to Kutna Hora today with Kathryn to see the Ossuary or Bone Church. It was an old mortuary that was overloaded after the plague swept across europe and a lot of exhumed bones were left piled up around the church. At some point an artist came along and redesigned the chapel with the addition of sculptures, tapestries, chandeliers, and other decor made out of human bones. It was pretty amazing. we have a bunch of pictures and a short video of the place. very exciting.

And can I take this time to bitch about how much of a pain it is to tzpe when the z and the y kezs are switched around...oh, and I cant make apostrophes or question marks either, sorrz about that.

On to Praha

Stopped off in Prague today and it is beautiful like every other place here. it is amazing, so beautiful and full of old history and culture (not to mention good beer and wine). i am running out of time here on the internet, but i wanted to get something up. we only walked around a little tonight and frank and belle will be here tomorrow to hang out for the rest of our time here. so far this had been excellent. even though the weather hasnt been the best, we have only had one really bad rainy day. it has rained a little every other day since then, but we havent been put out too bad since budapest. take care all.

K

Catching Up

So, it seems the last post was back in santiago. well, it rained our last couple days there and it was off to madrid last saturday. madrid was beautiful, but did not grab me like the other places we have been did. This week was in budapest and it rained pretty much the whole time (except for the very beginning and end), but was nice enough to see most of the city still. Then, this morning we are here in Vienna Austria and it was raining at first, but is very nice out and we are hoping for continued good weather. peace.

Mono

Turns out Kathryn has mono and will not be getting better in a week from antibiotics. in fact, she has a rash becuase the antibiotics clash with the mono (or something like that). We went to the hospital today to get checked out...well, she did and i came later after i woke up and found out she had been take there. It only took three confusing conversations with people who spoke as much english as i speak galego (the language here is not spanish, it is actually closer to portuguese, who knew!) to find her and shortly thereafter the doctor came in with the bloodwork and gave us the bad news. she told us that kathryn should go home, but we went for a second opinion and it seems she will be okay as long as she has ample rest and an opportunity to lay down when she gets exhausted. hopefully, all will be fine.

i wonder if i gave it to her because i have always wanted to blame my need for 10 hours of sleep a night on the fact that i had mono. i have never gotten sick and doubt very much that i have mono. maybe one day we will know. until then i will press on throughout the rest of europe with the gang.

i am going to go cook some dinner for kathryn and laura (one of the girls with us on the trip). peace...K

"The Day of Breaking" and Other News

A couple of days ago was a rough day for all of us. Laura´s bag broke, Kathryn´s strep was only getting worse (and unfortunately still is, pray for her), Belle´s suitcase broke, and my glasses broke. Then later that evening I managed to lose one of my contacts, one of only two that I brought since I was expecting to wear my glasses most of the time. So far, my second application of duct tape has sufficed.

Tomorrow is St. James Day, the biggest holiday i know of here in santiago, but the celebration is tonight (much like new year´s day for us) and the place is insane. people everywhere and a million things going on all around. the celebration has been raging for a few hours now (it is almost 10), but it wont be in full swing until probably 1 or 2. No one goes to bed here before 4 in the morning or so. think of what we are used to in the states and add 4 hours. dinner is at 9 or 10 and they dont even go out until 1 or 2. its crazy. i have been going to bed early around 3 or so.

Fireworks are in an hour and i am signing off. take care all.

Rough couple months

Havent posted in a while, so no one is going to be checking this anytime soon i am guessing. i have had quite a rough couple months, but i am now on the upswing and things are smoothing out. this last downswing was pretty unique because i was still having fairly regular alone times (although much less frequent than usual). time to journal and time to read scripture, etc. Things with kathryn were up and down, but more frequently down. i was in a lot of transition and the like. all this combined with not having much i wanted to write about nor wanting to do much more than continue to simply exist.

that said, i am now in spain at the beginning of a month long tour of europe and things are beginning to smooth themsleves out. it is exciting and i am going to try and post my thoughts and experiences here over the course of the trip. after that, i will be back in school and i hope that will give me some fuel for writing here more often.

first thoughts...porto portugal was beautiful and i loved my short stay there (not to mention jumping off a bridge 50 ft into the river below in my boxers with my best friend). it was a picturesque city and it is worth spending some time there just to take it all in. it is also really cheap. however, santiago is more beautiful to me becuase it is beautiful to be in and not just beautiful to look at. the old town part where we will be most of our stay is all stone with sculptures and a giant cathedral, and fountains and it is gorgeous. i love it (and i had a giant chicken sandwich and french fries and a cafe con leche for like 7 bucks for dinner, they love french fries here and in porto). more to come, but i wanted to get something down here for now. peace.

Across From Me...Beauty.

There is an older woman here at the coffee shop who is shaking like she has Parkinson's disease. Her manner is a little unkempt as she sits, drinking coffee as she stares out the window. She breaks my heart...but should she? Is it not possible that she is far more content, far more joyful about who she is and where God has her in life than I will ever be? Is it not possible that she has untold treasures that I know nothing about? Why do I think that she is miserable, while assuming that the man walking down the street is just fine? We [the snobs, the elitests] think we know so much, but we really just a bunch of arrogant bastards and I hate it.

This woman sits here as she probably does every morning. She is a wealth of the beauty of God's creation and at one glance she is boxed up and ready to be shipped out without a second thought. I bitch about how the church has marginalized so many of God's children, but now I feel that I am far worse than the church will ever be.

So she sits with her purse around shoulder and on her lap, jeans tucked into her white athletic socks. She has long curly brown hair that began to turn grey after her last haircut. Under her is a winter coat and a thick winter sweater. Her large coffee is in a to go cup, and she is ready to step out into a cold winter night...

...but it is june in Minneapolis and it is 80 degrees outside and right now, at this moment, she is the most beautiful person I have ever seen.

Lord, please magnify your blessings upon her and make your light to shine upon her. I pray that she would bask in paradise with you in the age to come. I pray that one day I will look as she does right now, a simple, quiet beauty as she waits, prepared for winter that will eventually come.

Our Continued Disagreement

I have a tendency to want to prooftext things. When I am thinking about theological issues particular verses and passages pop into my head as "relevant." I don't think I like that really. It is good to have an idea of what the bible specifically speaks to something, but I want to be able to approach the issue with an understanding of how the whole of scripture, how the whole of the Gospel addresses a situation.

These thoughts are coming from a conversation I had with my friend holly about a teaching I gave at our weekly Three Nails gathering. The center of my teaching was an understanding of grace that is free and comes as a result of our total depravity through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is a contrast between a belief of total depravity (a complete inability to do good outside of the good fruit that occurs naturally as a result of the good root that is God within us) and a belief of progressive sanctification (that the good image with which we were created, while broken, is still capable of some good and our sanctification is the continued progression toward life that is fostered and nurtured by our Creator).

I know that I do not have all of the angles in the discussion covered, but these are the thoughts that are swirling around in my head. I know that there are differing opinions and ideas and interpretations of the scriptures and that many will respectfully disagree with mine and the same for me and others'. The question is how do we discuss without debating. How do we have fundamental differences in our view of grace and responsibility and continue to truly respect and love one another?

Holly, this is the discussion I want to be having. I am not so concerned about the above debate. I want us to live life together, have discussions along the way, and ultimately press deeper and deeper into the love and truth of God as he reveals it to us. Let's save the debate for another day.

The Worry Wort (sp?)

Five couples...two batches of pad thai...1 far too time consuming game of skip bo.

That was last night.

Today I am at work. My last day at Rynn's Luggage in the South Side. It is time to leave, time to worry about where the next paycheck will come from, time to remember that I don't have it figured out.

I find it amazing how many things there are to worry about. I findit ridiculous how many things that I worry about and how many things other people worry about and how easily we get frustrated at each other for worrying about stupid things when there are so many important things to worry about.

They are all stupid yet we find such comfort in our worries...why? I am guessing it has something to do with control becuase I am finding more and more that everything gets back to control, back to original sin, if you dig deep enough. Is it the terrifying realization that we are not in control?

I can think of two situations where the potential for worry is found: having responsibility for something and caring for someone. Worry comes when there is a chance that something we are responsible for might not work out as we hope (important meeting, preparing dinner, a hot date), or when there is an indication that someone we care for may change in a way that is not desirable to us (strange behavior, death, etc).

This is my premise and I have come up with many ideas and thoughts surrounding worry and control and the like, but I have decided to leave all of that out in hope that others will share their thoughts and opinions on worry.

Why do we worry? Are we claiming control and responsibility for things that are not our own? Or are some things under our control and things that we are responsible for? I don't know and I think I will opt out of feeling like I must have an answer.

Worn out

I hope this is not becoming a pattern. After last semester I was tired, I mean really worn out, and it wasnt until halfway through january on a trip to florida that I regained some sense of energy and vitality. It was only by the gentle hand of God that I was truly refreshed. I looked at my journal and almost every entry for a month began with "I'm tired..." It wasnt until one morning in florida when I woke up at 8 am with no alarm fully refreshed that I started feeling normal and healthy again.

I feel tired again...really tired.

I am in this constant struggle as to whether I am going to continue my seminary education. I have so many things on my plate and they are good things, but I dont know if school is going to make the cut. I dont want to take classes for the sake of pursuing a degree. I want to want to do the work and learn the things I am learning. Part of me does, but there are so many things that eek out schoolwork and it ends up being the last thing on the list. Something to be put off until it must absolutely be done. I dont want to just do enough in grad school like I did in undergrad. I also dont want to be exhausted and in debt.

I have been asked to help run point for a fledgling church plant (which is a terrible term, any refrence to church with an "a" in front makes me uncomforable) and I do not know what that is going to end up looking like.

On a different note, for better or worse, I can look at the past few weeks and notice how different the days are when I dont set any (or much) time aside for the Lord. It has been quite remarkable.

And I just met my kathryn's ex-fiancee for the first time tonight. I dont know why it is so hard for me to like this guy. He seems like a decent guy and kathryn cares very much for him, but I just dont want anything to do with him. Since he lives 6 hours away I would think this wouldnt be a big deal, but kathryn is adamant about me getting to know him and liking him. I dont understand why I cant just ignore him. There are plenty of other friends of hers that I will never get to know. Granted, I havent had to pray through the same kind of unrational animosity toward them as I have toward him, but as it stands I dont dislike him, i just dont want to sit around a table with a bunch of people I dont know and talk about his family and how wonderful his sister and brother are. Maybe I am being unreasonable and I am probably still holding onto some unclaimed bitterness, but it feels like one more thing I dont have the energy to sort through right now....Man am I tired.

A Response to "i am emergent, i am not Emergent"

i am emergent, i am not Emergent

This post gets at the heart of much of my struggle to really engage at the emergent convention at asbury this month. I agree with everything he says about being "emergent." The thing is that, aside from the "post-"whatevers, it is simply a description of what Christ calls everyone in his church to be.

I had a good conversation over dinner the other day with the pastor of a reformed presbyterian church in ipswich, mass. named David. Those he leads would not consider themselves "emerging" from what I can tell. I doubt many of them have ever even heard the term (or post-protestant, or post-anything), but David has a beautiful understanding of the gospel and it is exactly what john describes. The result of our conversation is that I have come to feel that much of the emergent conversation is reactionary, not emergent. While we are emerging into a new culture and state of the world, it does not seem like the basics of the gospel are changing. It does not even seem like the interpretations that people have are all that new. I am afraid it is more that we have all seen really bad examples of being church and have met a lot of people who have been burned (many of us included) and we are reacting to that.

I have spent a meal with a very "modern" pastor and it has convinced me that if every church for the past 50 years had been led by a man (or woman) with similar convictions there would be no emerging conversation today. At least no term "emergent" as john has described here. David has art shows at his church and contemporary services and he would probably never label himself as "emergent;" he would simply call himself a Christian.

No matter how much our culture changes, the love of God will be relevant and true. It will not take fancy ways of communicating that love, just authenticity. It is true, we should spend a lot of time talking about what that means and what that looks like and if that is what the emerging conversation is about then bring it on, but if not, lets spend our time doing something else.

I would love to hear people's comments on this because I have spent the last three years in this conversation and planting an "emergent" church, so these new thoughts are quite a lot for me. Any thoughts?

A Response to "Whose On First"

Whose On First

First, I cant help but be distracted by the use of "whose" instead of "who's," but I recognize that is not the issue...

I think that John and Andrew are right in their discussion about the church eating itself alive. Why do we need to fight incessantly about these issues? I hope that all of us are constantly looking at the fruits of our lives. If something we are doing or something we are saying is bearing bad fruit, I hope that we are changing our approaches. Why can we not trust each other to be seeking truth and the love of God? Why can we not all have a higher opinion of the holy spirit? If we did, we wouldnt worry about any of this becuase we would trust that God is in control and that he will see his people through. If we think someone has a bad theology, let God handle it. What are we really going to do? Has yelling at the street preacher who is yelling at those around him ever accomplished anything? I will stop there before I venture too close to "cant we all just get along."

I do want to note my support of Andrew's comment about feeling that the gospel is never about pissing someone off (a bit paraphrased). Everytime I have said this there is the inevitable response of "But the Gospel is offensive..." Yes, I agree that the gospel is offensive, but it is not our job to offend people with it. Our call is to always be able to give a defense for the reason we believe (note the word 'defense') and to do it with "gentleness and respect." The church would have less people pissed at it if we held this as a value with any kind of seriousness.

Playing Catch Up

It has been a bit too long since my last post. However, not long enough to merit a full account of my recent thoughts since I need to go to bed and I am exhausted. I have been here at the Emergent Worship, Art, Liturgy, Preaching conference and it has been interesting. I must say that I am still a bit surprised that worship was included in the list as opposed to being an overarching concept (i had thought the name was worship: art, liturgy, Preaching, but there is a comma, not a colon).

The main sessions have been excellent thus far. Brian McLaren always has good things to say and tonight a woman named Maggie Dawn spoke and it was spectacular. I hope I can find a recording of it somewhere becuase she spoke to my heart and affirmed a lot of the thoughts I have been having about scripture lately. In fact, she poetically spoke on a topic that Kathryn and I had in the car on the way to Boston last week and explained it much better than I did. She was attempting to clarify the understanding that all scripture is inspired. She believes that the inspiration of the scriptures is not about the precision of the words, but about the power of the poetic to speak into particular human situations. I really like that statement. She also commented, "The Word of God is the second person of the Trinity, not the fourth and it should be treated as such." It was good stuff.

The seminars have been so so. I think I have just not gone to the right ones for where I am at currently. They were the ones that I wanted to go to, but they were not what I had hoped they would be. It has been to no fault of the speakers, everyone has done a good job so far, I have just not resonated with them as much.

My overall impression compared to three years ago (my last emergent experience) is interesting. Three years ago we were all still searching, I felt we were all very new to the conversation and the bookstore only had about 10 books and half of them did not even address the "emergent church" specifically (like Dallas Willard's Divine Conspiracy). However, now there are 75 books and 30 videos and 20 gurus...it is a different scene. I am still hearing, "we don't have any answers, just questions," but I believe it a little less this time around. So far this is not really a criticism, I need to think some more about it. We will see how the rest of the conference goes and I will probably comment more.