The Internet Monk Archives

The Unseen Trail

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
The Unseen Trail (Allen Krell)

• • •

It was one of those beautiful days for a quick day hike. The weather was mild, warm enough not to need a jacket but too cool to wear shorts. I stopped by a local set of hiking trails on the side of a small mountain, with trails marked by volunteers. My mind had been preoccupied with struggles, and I thought a quick hike would be a great way to clear my thoughts. At the trail head, I find a trail of less than a couple of miles, and I head out for a quick hike.

Instead of taking in the beauty and quietness of the mountain, I spent the time preoccupied with the events of life. The struggles of the past year had overwhelmed me, and I could think of nothing else. The thoughts of my mind raced as I continued my walk.

I was growing weary, and I decided to take a short break. I hadn’t taken any water on my short journey, and my mouth was getting dry. I suddenly noticed the sun was much further down on the horizon than I had expected it to be. I had lost track of time, and more importantly, I had gotten off the intended trail.

I start walking again, anxiously looking for my original path. As I continued to walk, I noticed much of the trail looked very familiar, and I realized I was only going in circles. I see a side path and decide to try a different way, but it too only led me into circles. I continued looking for the way off the mountain, but I could not find the correct trail.

The sun kept setting in the distance, and I was very thirsty. My tongue and my lips were now throbbing. I stopped walking, and I took another rest. Trying to forget the dryness of my mouth, I begin to take in the beauty of the wilderness around me. With the sun low on the horizon, cool shadows were cast around me.

As I started to walk again, I noticed another trail that I had not yet traveled. It was partly hidden by a bush, but it was a well-marked and worn trail. I was weary of endless walking, and I decided to try this trail. This trail was slightly narrow, but it seemed a little more worn than the others. Clearly, many people had traveled it before.

I was no longer traveling in circles, and this trail clearly was taking me in a new direction. This trail too seemed long, but eventually I saw a clearing in the wilderness. The trail opened up to a two lane road, with a sidewalk. I realized the road would lead back to the parking lot at the trail head.

I was exhausted now, but the knowledge of my destination gave me extra strength. I walked back up the mountain to my car at the trail head. I drove back to my apartment, opened the tap for a glass of water, and sat in a chair. My throat was so dry, the water would not go down. Only a trickle of water went down my throat before I collapsed asleep in the chair.

A time later, I awoke. It was now dark. The throbbing in my throat was now subsiding, and I was able to swallow more water.

My mind was a bit clearer now as I reflected on the travels of my day. The trail that led me out of the wilderness was well worn by many before me, and I passed it several times, but I hadn’t seen it. I wondered why it took me so long to find it.

Transforming the Original Wilderness

Gen 1.2 Smith — al-peney hamayyim, J M Smith

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
Transforming the Original Wilderness (Genesis 1:2)

• • •

“Now the land was an uninhabitable wasteland, covered with water and thick darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Gen 1.2)

The early chapters of Genesis were designed to help the Jewish people come to terms with their identity and place in the world. Though we don’t know for certain who wrote these texts and how they came to introduce the Scriptures, we know that the final composition and editing of the Torah (as well as the rest of the Hebrew Bible) took place during and after the Babylonian Exile. These chapters spoke to that situation.

The Exile was the greatest defeat imaginable for Israel. When the Temple was destroyed, they lost not only a national landmark, but also their very identity as a people who worshiped the God enthroned there. They had proclaimed him King above all gods on Mt. Zion, and therefore Jerusalem’s downfall provoked a deep theological crisis. In essence, the Hebrew Bible was put together to answer the questions raised by that crisis, to restore Israel’s faith in God as King, to assure them of their identity as God’s people, and to encourage them to look forward to the day when God would be vindicated and his Kingdom established forever.

Though many people in our day want to read the early chapters of Genesis in terms of modern scientific categories, they were not put in the Torah to address such issues. Rather, they are the “Old Stories” — the foundational narratives that helped the Jews in exile remember who God was, why they were created, and what God’s plan for them in the world might be.

Genesis 1 tells the story of how God turned a wilderness into a good land, established his temple there, appointed human beings to be his priests to represent him to the rest of the world, and sat down on his throne to rule.

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Sights along the Road… (2/26/12)

SONY DSC — World's Tallest Totem Pole, Foyil, Oklahoma

Since we are focusing on one particular theme during Lent (wilderness journeys), I’ve been trying to think of a way to keep some discussion going on other things that I’m reading and that are happening. I don’t mean to duplicate Jeff’s Saturday Ramblings, but I will add my own “Sights along the Road” post on Sunday afternoons during the season as an additional forum for reference and conversation.

In “Sights along the Road,” I’ll try to bring you up to speed on what I’m reading, watching and listening to, what’s being said around the web that got my attention, news that may of interest to IM readers, and perhaps even an occasional rant.

Plus, cool pix of bizarre roadside attractions. HERE is a great blog about them.

So, without further ado…

• • •

First, a video of some happy music I’ve been enjoying. This is from last years album, “Days,” by Real Estate. If you like cute dogs, jangling guitars, and a sixties’ vibe that recalls the Beach Boys and the Byrds, you should dig it.

Second, an alert regular reader and commenter sent me a link that verbalizes what we all know is an unwritten rule in many churches. It seems North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, CA has a vibrant missions program with regular missionary speakers and an annual Missions Conference. In order to help missionaries attending their conference, the church leadership gives them a set of guidelines: “…to ensure that the conference runs smoothly without any undue embarrassment to either the missionary or our church.” Guideline #8 is especially interesting —

8. All of us have burdens, but please do not let it show on your face. We want to portray to people that the ministry is great. Burdens are part of life; however, the people of the church need to see that we are living on the winning side. The ministry is great!

Uh huh. I knew it was written down somewhere. And I’ll just bet that Paul never let any of those experiences in 2Corinthians 11 “show on his face,” right?

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iMonk Classic: The Unresolved Tensions of Evangelicalism (1)

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
The Unresolved Tensions of Evangelicalism, part 1
A classic Michael Spencer iMonk post from Nov. 2008

NOTE: On Sundays in Lent, we will run these classic essays from Michael Spencer on the evangelical wilderness.

My posts on Christine Wicker’s and Julia Duin’s descriptions of evangelicalism’s winter are meant to be provocative, but they are also an attempt to hear something in the voices of our critics we rarely allow into our discussions: the scary truth.

The observations of these two reporters- one a Christian and one not- tell a similar story of a fragmented, declining evangelicalism; a movement whose energy and direction has badly dissipated.

Some of these observations are highly controversial. According to Christine Wicker’s model, evangelicalism began to come apart at the Scopes Trial and its end was actually hastened by the advent of critical thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Carl F.H. Henry. Such men gave evangelicals a non-fundamentalist option and started a process of accommodating various aspects of modernity.

In compromising at all with modernity, evangelicalism started a journey that will end with many of its thinkers and children abandoning its historic distinctives, its inerrant view of the authority of scripture and its commitment to the traditional church. Wicker believes modernity will triumph; in fact, has triumphed any time an evangelical’s child decides not to be a young earth creationist or to accept the possibility of gay marriage.

Julia Duin is more optimistic about evangelicalism. She believes that the flaws can be corrected by making choices to reject the shallowness and cultural captivity of evangelicalism. The demise of the evangelicalism of the Bush years is a good thing, and can be replaced by the best that evangelicalism has retained and learned. But Duin understands from within evangelicalism that there are genuine tensions whose lack of room for resolution is having affects few reflecting on evangelicalism want to admit.

I would like to suggest and explore another level to this consideration of evangelical demise: the personal level. Both Duin and Wicker skillfully describe personal stories of evangelical degeneration and abandonment. Both have personal experiences in their own evolution, both in moving through and out of evangelicalism under the pressure of some of these tensions.

The personal level I want to consider are those places where evangelical Christianity is fails for millions of evangelicals. It is the levels where so many evangelicals are painfully silent, but where the truth is discernible to the careful observer. These are some of the unresolved tensions of disillusionment among evangelical Christians.

What are these personal levels of disillusionment?

The level of disillusionment with the Christian worldview.

The level of disillusionment with Christian experience.

The level of disillusionment with Christian community.

The level of disillusionment with Christian commitment itself.

I will briefly touch on each one in a separate post.

Continue reading “iMonk Classic: The Unresolved Tensions of Evangelicalism (1)”

The Firepit

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
The Firepit

• • •

The pastor stood in front of Chris’s casket and nodded as mourners filed by. Glancing around, he saw a flower arrangement behind him with an interesting note on it: “From your friends at Green Lake Campground.” It was striking to him that owners of a campground would send such a lush bouquet and that it would be displayed so prominently, close to the casket.

Then again, as he was preparing for the service, the minister discovered that Chris and Peggy had spent twenty summers at Green Lake with their family and friends. It was as much their community as the neighborhood in which they lived. Most of the pictures pinned on the display boards around the funeral home showed them enjoying activities there. As their pastor, he hadn’t known them for long — he was new at the church — and it was only after Chris’s death that he had learned about some of the activities that had shaped their lives over the years.

Just then, a man and woman passed by, extending their hands. “Hi, we’re Joe and Marie from Green Lake Campground. Thanks so much for the service today. Chris and Peggy have been good friends for many years.”

“I knew they enjoyed camping,” the pastor, “but I never knew how much until today. And you came! I’m sure it means the world to them.”

A few moments, later, another man shook his hand and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Carl. I own the Country Kitchen restaurant on Jefferson Street.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” the pastor said. “It was important to Chris, even when it was difficult for him to get out, to try and go to lunch at your restaurant several times a week. You were like their extended family. They raved about how you treated them.”

The man wiped a tear from his eye and tried to say something, but the words didn’t come.

“Thanks for coming,” said the minister. “I know they appreciate it.”

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Saturday Ramblings 2.25.12

Welcome to the holiest of all holy days edition of Saturday Ramblings. What is this holy day, you ask? Daytona 500 Eve? No. Land Run Day? No. The birthday of Will Rogers, the patron saint of Oklahoma? No. Today is the annual Holland Hall Book Fair. By the time most of you are reading this, I will be plowing through tables of used books at Holland Hall, a pricey private school in Tulsa. For less than twenty bucks you can come out with a pretty good haul of books. Doors open at 8. I will be there at 6. If you come, be sure to stand behind me in line. And no matter how good of a friend you are, once we are inside, I don’t know you. So, are you ready to ramble?

How was your Ash Wednesday? Was it inconvenient to get in and out of your church for the service? Too bad you didn’t have a drive-thru Ash Wednesday service. The Synonymous Rambler came up with this story about a church near my old stomping grounds of Cincinnati that held just that—a drive-thru Ash Wednesday service.

And who did not see this coming? A ski-thru Starbucks. Sigh …

Do you need someone to explain Lent to you? Perhaps this video will help you. Actually, I think I would rather just read what Mark Galli has to say about giving up self-discipline for Lent.

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Grace Grows in the Barren Land

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
Grace Grows in the Barren Land: Why God leads us into the wilderness (Rev. Daniel Jepsen)

• • •

God’s sometimes has a strange way of showing His love.

Consider the ministry of Jesus. All three synoptic gospels record the same unsettling start to the ministry of Jesus. First, Jesus is baptized. Second, a voice from heaven utters this phrase (in Matthew’s wording):

This is my Son
Whom I love
With Him I am well pleased.

And then, immediately, God leads this same Son into the wilderness. Sending someone on a wilderness wandering seems an odd way of showing someone love and approval. The wilderness is the last place on earth most people would want to be sent. It is lonely, barren, hot, uncomfortable, and, as Mark reminds us in his gospel, full of wild animals.

Yet God sends His Son into the wilderness. Just as He had done before with another son, Israel; and just as He continues to do with His children today.

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Another Look: Destruction: God’s Alien Work

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
Destruction: God’s Alien Work (Lisa Dye)

• • •

“The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,

he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—
to do his work, his strange work,
and perform his task, his alien task …”

• Isaiah 28:21

“What is more alien to salvation than destruction?
And yet this is what Christ does to his own.”

• Martin Luther

• • •

I had an “aha” moment when I read these words of Martin Luther, and I imagine he had a similar moment when he first thought them. The idea that God who created the heavens and earth is also bent on destruction seems … well, alien. But then again, it explains so much.

A few evenings earlier I came home from a Greek translation class with thoughts of the passage we worked through in Mark 11. In it, Jesus was walking toward Jerusalem and spied a fig tree from afar in full leaf. It was not the season for figs, yet coming close he looked for fruit he knew he would not find. And finding no fruit he pronounced words of destruction over the tree.

Going on into the city, he went to the temple and found the moneychangers conducting business in the court of Gentiles. Theirs was a legitimate and necessary business conducted in an illegitimate place – and taxed by Caiaphas, the High Priest, who wanted a percentage of the trade. Having tables set up inside the temple area instead of outside necessitated merchandise to be carried in, thus making it a thoroughfare … thus violating the temple laws designed to keep it sanctified for prayer and worship.

Was Jesus angry? Scripture doesn’t say. After he turned over the tables and benches of those changing money and selling doves, he taught them saying, “Is it not written: “‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

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Another Look: Circle Or Cross?

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
Circle or Cross? (Jeff Dunn)

• • •

This is an essay from 2010 where I look at the unevenness and disorganization of the cross. As we enter into this Lenten season, our focus must be on the cross, and not on ourselves. This essay owes much to the thoughts of G. K. Chesterton from his classic work, Orthodoxy.

This is an interactive essay, one that requires your participation. You will need a piece of paper, a pencil or pen or crayon or some sort of marker, and a compass or something you can trace around to make a circle, such as a soup can. Go gather your materials. I’ll wait.

No, really. Go get your things. You need will need them in order to “get” what I will be talking about.

Got them? Good. Mmmm…Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Noodle. Good choice.

Now, on your nice white piece of paper, I want you to draw a circle. If you have a compass (the kind you used in geometry, not the type you use in the woods when you want to find your way), you can spread it out to make it as big as the paper will allow. If you are tracing, well, your circle will only be as large as the can. Any size circle will do, actually. Are you done? Do you have a perfectly round circle? Good.

The circle is the basis for most all mathematics. It led to what we now know as geometry and calculus. From the circle we get the wheel which, along with gears (also circles), puts the world around us in motion. The circle, if drawn properly, is a perfect shape. There are 360 points, or degrees, in your circle, each one equidistant from the center point. If you draw a straight line from the center point to the any point on the circle, you have the radius. A line that goes from one point on the circle to another while passing through the center point is the diameter. The distance around the circle is called the circumference. The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is measured as pi, an irrational number, meaning its digits never repeat and never end. It short form, pi is equal to 3.14159. Modern computers have been able to measure pi in digits exceeding a trillion without the sequence repeating.

Have I lost you yet? Hang in there—our lesson in math is just about over.

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All Fall Down

potthast-ring-around-the-rosie-c1910-15 — Ring around the Rosy, Potthast

Lent 2012: A Journey through the Wilderness
All Fall Down (Ash Wednesday)

• • •

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleepin’ in broken beds
Ain’t no use jivin’, ain’t no use jokin’
Everything is broken…

• Bob Dylan

• • •

We must first learn that the wilderness is within us.

Though we dwell in dry and discouraging places, the barren land that surrounds us is the effect and not the cause of our misery. We are not the “good people” to which bad things happen. We are the fools who have fouled our own nests and now move about in the dirt and stench.

Our rebel rain-dance has awakened the storm clouds and now we find what pleasures we can splashing in puddles and rolling in mud. Fun though it may be, we end up soaked and shivering, and it’s hard to avoid making a mess everywhere we go.

“Ashes, ashes, all fall DOWN!” the children sing, smacking the ground with their butts and squealing with delight. If only they knew. These little Jacks and Jills will spend their whole lives tumbling, fighting gravity, trying to avoid breaking their crowns. All the while, the king’s horses and men will rush about, triaging the damage, sweeping up bits of shell, spraying away the goopy mess of foolish Humpties who had no business sitting atop walls in the first place.

The very earth is groaning as ice caps melt, forests dwindle, and species die off.

You and I can’t seem to talk to each other without getting our feelings hurt or at least wondering about motives. We find it hard to quiet the noise within and we avoid quiet places because that’s when it gets so loud we can’t stand it. So we keep busy with trivial matters and call that life. We convince ourselves that we’re mad at the government or appalled at the latest scandal. We watch the cooking shows and imagine we’re full. We live for Sunday, paint our faces and don our jerseys, and dine on bread and circuses. The antics of our virtual “friends” amuse us or at least keep us occupied until the next show starts.

It’s a wilderness out there because it’s a wilderness in here.

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