The Internet Monk Archives

Monday with Michael Spencer: A Couple of Surprising Encouragements

Monday with Michael Spencer
A Couple of Surprising Encouragements

Today, I offer a couple of stories about the grace that’s all around us, that appears in small ways, and might appear more often if we prayed and took notice of where Jesus said the Kingdom appears.

On Thursday, almost everyone I work with was at a waterpark about an hour away, including my family. I opted to stay home and get work done, as school is about to start and I am way behind on several projects that have to be completed soon.

While the entire staff is gone, a volunteer group from one of our supporting churches comes and does whatever needs to be done in order to keep everything safe and running in the absence of all the support staff. These are people who come a very long way just to do a servant ministry on this one day.

So I was on campus and had to go to the main office for a moment, and outside that building was one man from this group, enjoying the beauty of the day on our nearly deserted campus. I passed him going in and spoke briefly, and on my way out I did the same. He was friendly, but it was all small talk.

So as I approached my car across the street from the bench where he was sitting in the yard, he says, “I like that Internet Monk web site.”

Now, a bit of a detour. I’m not the Internet Monk around here. In fact, while I know a lot of my co-workers read the site, not all do so in a supportive way. So not only do I never mention it, I really make an effort to completely keep it under the radar as much as possible.

But it’s important to know that a good bit of what I do hear is from those few who are offended by something I say. And that has caused me endless hours of stress and confusion over whether I should stop writing or not. My choice, obviously, is to keep writing, because God has given me hundreds of thousands of readers and what happens at this site is, if my mail is accurate, overwhelmingly positive.

I’ve decided that God made me who I am: a communicator and a writer. I can be a better one in my context, but I won’t ever cease to be one.

But I just never know what someone who is a supporter of our ministry thinks, because it’s the nature of things that it’s the criticism that is brought to my attention.

So here sits this Baptist man, a middle aged deacon, and I didn’t even know he knew my name. And he wants to say to me that he, for one, likes this web site and likes what I write.

I turned around and was silent for a moment, then I said “Well, thank you very much. It’s good to hear that.”

He walked toward me and said, “I’ve had some Bible questions I wanted to ask you….” and away we went on the witch at Endor.

I needed that.

II.

My wife was at work, and the pastor of the local Baptist church came by to talk print shop business.

Being a pastor, the conversation turned to church, and he said “I know you’re going through a transition right now, and I wanted to give you something.”

Background: My wife has been an important part of our local Baptist church. Played the piano for services when asked. Played piano for choir rehearsals a lot. Sang in the choir. She’s loved and liked by the staff and people.

Knowing that they now know she’s going to the Roman Catholic Church, and knowing that I’m deeply struggling with it as a husband and a minister, it’s been difficult for her to know how people feel about her. Especially the pastor. (These are Southern Baptists, who aren’t exactly famous for ecumenical fervor.)

So she was expecting an anti-Catholic tract or some sort of Protestant apologetic book. She’s had some minor brushes with unfriendly comments already from some who attend the church.

He held out to her a crucifix. An older one from its look. A gift for her.

“My step-father was a Catholic, and this belonged to him. I thought you would appreciate it.”

And then he offered to come by and pray with us anytime, and to be pastor to our family in this unusual situation.

My list of people who have responded to all of this with any measure of simple Christian compassion had five names on it. Now I’ll be adding a sixth.

• • •

There is discouragement in my world, but if I am honest, most of it is smaller than I make it. I am the one who amplifies it most of the time.

As I’ve learned to listen more and more to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, I’m learning that Jesus was very dependable when he taught us that the Kingdom of God is upon is. Right here, right now, close by.

Sunday with Ron Rolheiser: What the Walk Teaches Us

Camino de Santiago. Photo by Staffan Andersson

Sunday with Ron Rolheiser
What the Walk Teaches Us

Several years ago, Hollywood produced a movie about the famous Camino walk in Spain. Entitled The Way, it chronicles the story of a father whose son was killed in an accident shortly after beginning this famous five hundred mile pilgrimage. The father, played by Martin Sheen, had been largely estranged from his son, but when he goes to France (where the Camino begins) to collect the ashes of his dead son, he feels a compulsion to complete the walk for his son and sets out with his son’s hiking equipment and backpack, carrying his ashes.

He’s unsure as to exactly why he is doing this, except that he senses that somehow this is something he must do for his son, that this will somehow address his estrangement from his son, and that this is something he must do to ease his own grief. Despite being in a rather depressed and anti-social state, he is befriended on the trail by three people, each on the trail for different reasons.

The first of these people is a man from the Netherlands who is walking the trail to lose weight, fearing that, if he doesn’t, his wife will divorce him. The second of his new friends is a French- Canadian woman, ostensibly walking Camino to give up her addiction to smoking, but clearly also trying to steady her life after the breakup of a relationship. The third person is an Irish writer, hoping to overcome “writer’s block”. And so the story focuses on four unlikely walking companions, each doing this pilgrimage with a certain goal in mind.

They persevere and complete the pilgrimage, enter the Cathedral of Santiago, observe the customs that have marked the end of the Camino for countless pilgrims for a thousand years, and then realize that what each of them had hoped to achieve hadn’t happened. The man from the Netherlands hadn’t lost any weight; the French-Canadian realized that she would not give up smoking; the Irish writer realized that his real issue was not writer’s block, and the father who was doing this walk vicariously for his son realized that he had done it for other, more personal, reasons. None of them got what they wanted, but each of them got what he or she needed. The roads of life work like that, as the Camino Santiago.

I learned that exact lesson, walking the Camino a year ago. I went there with there with a certain dream in mind. I was six months beyond chemotherapy treatments, refreshed with new energy, on sabbatical, and looking forward to walking this ancient and famed road to stretch myself physically and spiritually. The physical stretch happened and fitted the fantasy I’d had before leaving for the walk. But the spiritual stretch was a long, long ways away from what I’d fantasized.

My dream had been that I would use this walk to do some deeper inner work, to read some classical books on mysticism, blend the depth of the mystics with the mystique of this ancient trail, do some journaling, and return a deeper and more contemplative person. Such was my dream, but the trail had other ideas.

We were many long hours on the trail each day so that there was basically no time to read or to journal. Evenings found me exhausted, without energy for much inner work. A shower and a hot meal were essentially the only thing I was up to. The major book that I’d taken along, The Cloud of Unknowing lay unopened at the bottom of my suitcase. I managed some hours each day, walking alone on the trail, to pray, but it wasn’t the kind of inner work I’d fantasized about. I’d had a fantasy about what I’d wanted to achieve, but, just as for the characters in the movie, apparently this wasn’t what I needed.

The trail taught me something else, deeper, more needed, and more humbling: What I learned from walking the road in the company of three close friends was how spoiled and immature I’d become. Having lived as a celibate priest, outside of the conscriptive demands of marriage, children, and family for more than forty years, I realized how idiosyncratic and self-centered the patterns and habits of my life had become. I was used to calling the shots for my own life, at least in its day-to-day rhythms. The Camino taught me that I need to address other issues in my life that are more pressing and more deeply needed than understanding The Cloud of Unknowing. The Camino taught me that in a number of important ways, I need to grow up!

Robert Funk once wrote that grace is a sneaking thing: It wounds from behind, where we think we are least vulnerable. It’s harder than we think and we moralize in order to take the edge off it. And, it’s more indulgent than we think; but it’s never indulgent at the point where we think it ought to be indulgent. Such too is the Camino Santiago.

* * *

Photo by Staffan Andersson at Flickr. Creative Commons License

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 4, 2018 — Back to School Edition

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 4, 2018
Back to School Edition

August is the new September, my friends. At least in the part of the world I live in. Because of “year-round school” and “balanced schedules,” the kiddos around us are heading back to school now, in late July and early August. I had to wait for school buses on my way to work this morning. And my grandkids head back next week. Today is the Blue vs. White scrimmage for the high school football team, and next week will find them scrimmaging in their only “pre-season” affair. Then it’s football season. In the middle of August. It is an abomination, I tell you! Baseball is just starting to get really good, and now they want me to sit in 90º heat in the glare of the sun on aluminum bleachers and watch football?

Now the picture above shows how it used to be. That is your eager Chaplain at the tender age of 6, getting ready to head off to elementary school in Galesburg, Illinois. And notice, he’s wearing a Yankees hat! That’s because in those days the only baseball we could watch on TV was “The Game of the Week,” and the Yanks were on almost every Saturday. It was the year after one of the greatest Yankee teams of all time, the 1961 World Series Champions. Roger Maris hit 61 home runs to surpass Babe Ruth’s record, one nobody thought would ever be surpassed. It was the heyday of Mickey Mantle, my hero. Whitey Ford went 25-4 that year. Now, in 1962, the Yanks were on their way to the World Series again, where they would face and defeat the Francisco Giants. The Giants had the incredible Willie Mays and to get to the Series they had to defeat the LA Dodgers in a three-game playoff after the teams were tied at the end of the regular season. (The Cubs went 59-103 that year. They finished ahead of only the pathetic NY Mets.)

But I digress… my point is — IT WAS SEPTEMBER!!! You know, September. After Labor Day. The beginning of the fall. Before football became a year-round obsession in America. Baseball pennant races. Beginning of the harvest. Apple pies. Pristine notebooks, new pencils and erasers, new school duds. It was back when we walked blocks and blocks to get to the school. Mom took your picture on the front stoop, and then, when you were out of sight, she heaved a sigh of relief that the long, long, hot summer was over.

Well, parents are still rejoicing, and kids are still thrilled/terrified/bummed out about going back to school. Here are some pics of what that can look like:

And here are a few before and after shots of that wonderful first day of school…

SPEAKING OF CHILDREN…

Isabelle Khoo gives parents suggestions about ten biblical baby names they might consider for the new little one:

Genesis
Adriel
Zemira
Shiloh
Boaz
Penina
Solomon
Phineas (maybe evokes a bit too much sex and violence?)
Miriam
Damaris — Hey look, Damaris, you made the list!

Now, if we were in Sunday School, we could have a “sword drill” to see who could find these names in the Bible.

KIDS ON THE LOOSE!

From NPR: As the sun rose over Idaho on Friday, residents of suburban West Boise awoke to find some noisy new neighbors horning in on their yards: goats. A teeming host of hungry, grunting goats.

Local reporter Joe Parris got the scoop, tweeting a photo of the horde on hooves. They were unsupervised — no handlers, no herding dogs, not even a nanny.

“Updates to follow,” he promised.

But first came a half-hour of harrowing quiet from his account, as onlookers wondered whence came all the amazing grazers. What could be happening to those innocent lawns — and what motive drove so many goats to go on the lam?

As the reporter resumed tweeting, posting some truly moving images of the goats making hay, the world grasped at straws.

THE JOY OF GRANDPARENTING…

From the NY Times: Jim Sollisch writes a luminous piece called “The Particular Joy of Being a Grandparent.”

I never thought I could hold a baby for an hour — my head a few inches from hers, hanging on every sigh, waiting intently for the next scrunch of her lips or arch of her barely visible eyebrows — perfectly happy, an idiot entranced by a magic trick. But there I was on my granddaughter Avery’s first day of life, so happy I didn’t recognize myself.

I have raised children. Five of them. I have held my own babies in their first minutes of life; I have felt that shock of recognition — this is a version of me. I have kvelled (a Yiddish word meaning a giddy mixture of pride and joy) at the things my babies did that all babies do. But I have never felt this thing that stopped my brain, that put all plans on hold, that rendered me dumb.

O.K., I’ve had glimpses of this thing. But this was my first uninterrupted hour of it.

HOW HOT HAS IT BEEN IN EUROPE THIS SUMMER?

It has been hot enough that the highest point in the country of Sweden has now become the second highest point, due to glacial melting. This, from Business News:

Almost at the Kebnekaise Mountain station. Photo by bengtham at Flickr. Creative Commons License (click picture to go to site)

The southern peak of Kebnekaise mountain, in northern Sweden, has shrunk by 14ft in the month of July because of the unusually hot sun melting the ice on top of it, according to figures published by Swedish news site TheLocal.se .

It used to be 6892.4 ft, but thanks to the hot weather is now only 6879.2 ft.

The north peak of the mountain is now slightly taller, 6879.3 ft.

The difference will likely become more pronounced as the summer continues and the south peak continues to shrink. The north peak is solid rock, so doesn’t change in the heat.

Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist, a geography professor at the University of Sweden, told Swedish newspaper Norrlandska Socialdemokraten : “The snow is disappearing so that not even the reindeer can find a place to get relief from the sun.

“This is happening very fast. The result of this hot summer will be a record loss in snow and ice in the mountains.”

AMAZING COMPOSITE PHOTO OF LAST WEEK’S “BLOOD MOON” ECLIPSE

This composite image of the July 27 lunar eclipse, shot from Australia, reveals the Earth’s shadow in a whole new way. (Credit: Tom Harradine)

CHAPLAINS ARE FIRST RESPONDERS TOO…

There is a nice article at Baptist Press about the role chaplaincy teams are playing in giving emotional and spiritual support to people affected by the fires in Northern California’s Carr Fire.

California Southern Baptist Disaster Relief chaplaincy teams have begun providing spiritual and emotional counseling to survivors of Northern California’s Carr fire, which started on July 23 and rapidly grew over the weekend to consume more than 98,000 acres.

…[Mike Bivins, director of California’s SBDR efforts,] said California SBDR teams will deploy a laundry unit today and have engaged local churches to help with laundry and showers for those in their communities. Southern Baptist volunteers and churches also have been able to provide pet care for survivors whose shelters do not allow pets.

“For us, one of the big things is continuing to partner with the local church to provide assistance and help them,” Bivins said. “In some cases, it’s about providing for the local church and enabling them to minister rather than rolling in and taking control.”

California SBDR is on standby with the American Red Cross to help with feeding if they are needed. They are also prepared to provide ash-out services for homeowners whenever asked. In mid-July, California SBDR teams completed ash-out work on nine mobile homes that burned during the West fire in San Diego county.

A FEW SCHOOL ANTHEMS FOR YOUR PLAYLIST…

Ambassadors Not Antagonists

Next weekend I am going on a canoe trip down the mighty Mississauga river. This week I realized that I had a canoe that needed fixing. So as the best laid plans of mice and men can go awry, today’s post is quite different from what was originally planned.

That being said, it does dovetail rather nicely into yesterday’s post, “Calling Out the Good in Technology”. The sermon at my church on Sunday dealt with how we respond to social media, and there were quite a number of “quotable quotes” which got me thinking a lot about how I interact on social media. Do any of these quotes grab you by the shirt collar and give you a little shake? How have you found yourself reacting on social media? Let us know in the comments what you think?

From passive-aggressive notes on ambulance windshields to bilious political discourse, it feels as though society is suddenly consumed by fury. What is to blame for this outpouring of aggression? ~ Zoe Williams

Perhaps the only thing we can agree on at this painfully divisive moment in our history is that all this anger and derision in which we’re marinating isn’t healthy. Not for us, not for our kids and certainly not for the country. But… we can’t seem to quit. We’re so primed to be mad about something every morning. It’s almost disappointing when there isn’t an infuriating tweet to share or a bit of our moral turf to defend waiting on our phones. ~ Susanna Schrobsdorff

Political polarization is both the United States and Canada seems to increase every year. Those on the left appear to move ever farther to the left; while those on the right find less and less in common with their fellow citizens. The political rhetoric has, in fact, escalated to a toxic level. ~ Philip Salzman

I’ve been thoroughly dismayed by Facebook the past couple of years. Maybe it’s a quirk of memory, but I don’t remember my feed being so full of political sparring and overwhelming anger between 2009-2012. Outrage has become the default position of my peers, and it doesn’t show any sign of diminishing. ~ Jason Hreha

Jason should see my Facebook feed! He’d see that theological sparring is catching up with political sparring. ~ Darrel Winger

I’m so weary of the “call out” culture. We need a call forth culture instead. Calling forth the best in people. Calling forth compassion, gratitude, empathy. Calling forth justice. Calling forth beauty, goodness, wonder. Calling forth courage. ~ Diana Butler Bass

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. ~ 1 Peter 3:15

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ~ Romans 12:17-18

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ~ Matthew 5:9

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefor Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:19

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself all things. ~ Colossians 1:19-20

Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It’s the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evil doer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. ~ Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

THINK before you communicate (speak, tweet, post).
T: Is it true
H: Is it helpful?
I: Is it inspiring?
N: Is it necessary?
K: Is it kind?

God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault in them. ~ Oswald Chambers

The Hebrew concept of Shalom (peace), isn’t merely about the cessation of hostilities, but also about the restoring of right relationship. ~ Mike Bell

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona: Chapter 6- Calling Out the Good in Technology

Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults, Chapter 6- Calling Out the Good in Technology

We are reviewing the book, Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona, subtitled Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults. Today we look at Chapter 6- Calling Out the Good in Technology. Greg wants to begin a conversation about the effect of technology on the faith of emerging adults. Culturally, popular films often tell us a lot about ourselves. He says that recent films that focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and robots exemplifies a cultural landscape that affects how emerging adults see religion and science. Certainly the Matrix films, beginning with the original, The Matrix in 1999 would qualify as such an example. Here is the Wikipedia summary (in case you’ve been living under a rock all this time):

The series features a cyberpunk story of the technological fall of man, in which a self-aware artificial intelligence has wiped most of humanity from the Earth except for those it enslaves in a virtual reality system as a farmed power source, and the relatively few remaining humans who are free of that system. The A.I. (Matrix) agenda is to destroy all humans who are free, considering them a threat/disease. The story incorporates references to numerous philosophical and religious ideas.

The Matrix was followed by the sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). They were successful movies that did spark a number of discussions at the time, but are probably more germane to the older end of the emerging adult spectrum. Phrases like “unplugged from the matrix” and “red-pilled” have entered the lexicon of contemporary jargon, and comparisons with Neo to Christ were numerous at the time.

Cootsona also notes a more recent film (which I have not seen), Ex Machina (2014), which depicts the creation of the beautiful and ultimately dangerous robot Ava. (Greg says, “Ava sounds a great deal like the biblical “Eve” to my ears—it seems we haven’t strayed too far from the previous chapter”). Ava has been created to pass the Turing Test, which evaluates a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human being’s.

Although these, and other movies featuring AI seem dystopian, and Greg thinks we fear technology and its power over us; but he thinks the church can’t be content to merely offer warnings—he thinks we also need to call out the good in technology. This is because, in his experience, the primary science that meets the faith of most 18-30 year-olds is technology. (I see his point, but I can’t help but think “the church’s” opinion of technology is already irrelevant to most emerging adults.)

In this chapter he wants to look at three broadly grouped (and somewhat disparate) categories of technology: screens, community, and the future. What do screens on smartphones, laptops, and tablets (essentially the Internet in your hand) do for us and to us? How does virtual community relate to the old-fashioned kind, where people are in the same place at the same time? And lastly, what is the future of technology going to bring?

In Cootsona’s experience in his college classes, emerging adults tend toward the pragmatic over theoretical speculation. A question like, “Does quantum physics offer a place for divine action” does not resonate with them. For emerging adults, technology is ubiquitous. They are digital natives. We seem to mark history in terms of technological advance. The rise of cities and farming, the use of bronze and then iron for tools and weapons, the feat of Roman roadways, the Gutenberg press… and so on.

So, today, let’s have a discussion of technology, particularly smartphones, and our emerging adults. Let’s discuss the pros and the cons. For example, Greg brings up researcher and technologist Jane McGonigal and her 2010 TED talk, “Gaming Can Make a Better World”. She promotes the theory that computer games can actually lead to human community! Cootsona says:

McGonigal reveals that the world spends three billion hours a week playing online games—which shocks the audience—and then doubles down by asserting that we need to do more gaming. How could that be the case? Because problem-solving skills developed in those virtual situations could be employed in cracking real-world problems, she says.

He then makes a few reflections on technology and the Christian faith, after all he says, technology is here no matter what, let’s use it well and for the good. First technology makes life easier—the information at our fingertips often represents a positive contribution to our lives. If you’ve ever used Google-Maps to find your destination, you know what he’s talking about. For his second point he says:

The second point is that this nonphysical world created by computer technology seems analogous to heaven in Christianity. The materialistic bias of our culture places a huge question mark in our mind that anything exists besides what we can touch, taste, and feel. We have returned in some ways to a daily sense of the “spiritual” (I use the term advisedly), or at least the nonphysical, which supports our central Christian conviction that “we live by faith, not by sight” (2Corinthians 5:7).

Third, Greg says, technology can spread the gospel. YouTube and YouVersion app, for example. It certainly makes Bible reading and study easier with Biblegateway and other tech helps. Fourth—and this may sound hackneyed but Greg says it’s nonetheless true—the Internet keeps us in touch and helps us to pray more effectively.

Feel free to discuss. And feel free to have your discussion ignored by your children and grandchildren. But, hey, I’m listening… just let me finish this text message… OK, what now?

Another Look: Make the Way by Walking

Make the Way by Walking

My friend, I have good news for you: you don’t have to “do grief right.” In our culture, we expect people to follow a certain path in the wake of a loss. I’m here to tell you: there is no defined path. Just be yourself, keep walking, and you will make a way.

You may be introverted, drawing strength from solitude. Or, as an extrovert, you may find help being with others. Some people need to sleep while others need to stay busy. Talking about it may help or hinder. Some read everything they can find to answer the questions that haunt them. Others want to simply forget. There is no “right” way.

Furthermore, you don’t have to come up with a “reason” or “purpose” for your loss. The plain fact is, there might not be one, at least one any of us will ever know.

You are not required to smile and say things are alright. You need not put on a positive front in order to “be strong” for others. “Falling apart” is normal. Give yourself permission.

You don’t have to always try to balance your sad feelings with positive ones. Your tears honor the immense importance of your loss. If it hurts, it hurts.

On the other hand, don’t feel guilty if you have a good day or want to do something fun. Even in a season of grief, there are ups as well as downs. It’s okay to still enjoy life’s blessings, to laugh, to lighten things up.

And perhaps you are one of those people who rarely cries and is not demonstrative about your feelings. Don’t let people pressure you into feeling bad about that. If you simply prefer to deal with your loss privately and process your thoughts and feelings more stoically or analytically because that is your personality, that’s okay.

There are some people who seem to handle pain, loss, and grief without much trouble. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are stronger or, on the other hand, in denial or unfeeling. Somehow, they can just absorb the blow and keep going. If that’s you, do it — keep going. Don’t allow people to question your lack of tears or outward expressions of grief. A sad face shouldn’t be required any more than a happy face. Just be yourself, you don’t have to explain it to anyone. You probably wouldn’t know how to explain it anyway. This whole life thing is pretty much a mystery, isn’t it?

If you are a person of faith, don’t automatically imagine that God will “speak” to you about your loss or give you a vision or a word that will explain it to you.

Don’t assume that, through your loss, God is giving you a “message” to share with others. Some of us are activist types, always looking for ways to help other people. But don’t jump to that, thinking that’s what “God wants” and what unselfish “faith” automatically does. Grief is not about that, it’s about you — your loss, your pain, your darkness. It is not “selfish” to focus on yourself. Grief means you have received a serious wound. There is a time to tend wounds.

“God-talk” can mean well, but it can also ramp up the pressure to “do grief right” and be “heroic” at a time when you need to heal. Church can be hard too. But if you find yourself dreading or avoiding it, don’t think you’re losing your faith. To be honest, congregations are often not good contexts in which healing can take place. I wish it weren’t so.

It’s okay to hurt, to cry, to fall apart, to withdraw, to get depressed, to be angry, to struggle within yourself and with God and others, to rage against the senselessness of it all, to have no words, and to feel like that for as long as you need. Grief doesn’t follow a timetable. Be patient with yourself, and seek the help of others who will let you be yourself.

There is no sure guide that can cut a straight path through the wilderness of grief.

You will make your own way by simply walking. And you will make it.

And by the way, if you need a friend to walk with you, give someone you trust a call.

Genesis: Where It All Begins (4)

What the Bible offers in the beginning is not a “works contract,” but a covenant of vocation. The vocation in question is that of being a genuine human being, with genuinely human tasks to perform as part of the Creator’s purpose for his world. The main task of this vocation is “image-bearing,” reflecting the Creator’s wise stewardship into the world and reflecting the praises of all creation back to its maker. Those who do so are the “royal priesthood,” the “kingdom of priests,” the people who are called to stand at the dangerous but exhilarating point where heaven and earth meet.

• N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began

• • •

Genesis: Where It All Begins (4)
Human Vocation: Undone and Restored

In the context of the biblical story, the Adam and Eve are not portrayed so much the first sinners as he is the first failed saviors.

What do I mean by that?

Here is my overview on how I have come to read the message about humans and God’s creation purposes for them in the book of Genesis.

Despite our common perception, the world we see in Genesis 1-2 is not a perfect world, devoid of sin and death. It is a good land, in contrast to a wasteland. It is ordered by God to provide for humankind and the other creatures so that they may flourish upon the earth and fulfill what God created them to be.

God created adam (humankind, broadly in Gen. 1; the adam (earthling) and the eve (the mother of all living, as portrayed in Gen. 2-3) to live as his image in the world, that is, his priestly representatives). This was and is the human vocation.

As his priestly representatives in the world, the adam was, within God’s blessing, to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Thus, the vocation involved not only flourishing upon the earth and taking care of creation as God’s stewards, but also actively engaging and overcoming evil.

From the beginning then, God chose humans, those who carry his “image” in the world, to repair the world (something like the Jewish concept of tikkun olam). The original mandate for humans is that we should represent God in the world and to live within his blessing so that we might rule over an unruly world and overcome evil and its effects on the world.

The Adam and Eve (and again, their names are highly symbolic), as presented in Genesis 2-3, were not the first humans, but they were the first representative humans to be called into this covenant vocation, that they might bring eternal life to the world (through the Tree of Life).

The story of the Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden shows humankind’s failure to do that. They failed to exercise dominion over the creatures and subdue evil (as represented in the wiles and lies of the serpent).

The Adam and Eve were thus exiled from Eden, thereby losing access to the Tree of Life for themselves and all their descendants, subjecting themselves and the world to the domination of sin, evil, and death. It is not that there was no death in the world before them, it is that they failed to subdue the elements of the unruly world that lead to death and bring life to the world.

This story was meant to teach Israel, to whom God had given this same vocation. This is, in microcosm, what the story of Israel and her leaders is about. Placed in God’s good land, and called to be a kingdom of priests and a light to the nations, Israel failed to keep God’s commandments and was ultimately cast into exile. Israel, like the Adam and Eve, failed to live up to her vocation of bringing God’s life to the world.

What the Adam and Eve could not do, what Israel and all her patriarchs, prophets, priests, and kings could not do, Jesus (the second Adam, the new Israel) did. Through his death, resurrection and ascension, he exercised dominion over the powers holding this world captive. He subdued evil, restoring access to the Tree of Life for the whole world. “If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

Those who are “in Christ” now receive a foretaste of this life and are restored to participate with Christ in fulfilling humankind’s original vocation: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We read of the ultimate goal in John’s vision of the throne: “you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth” (Revelation 5:10).

Behind all consideration of our specific “callings” as individual human beings to live in this world and care for it and each other by doing our work well and loving God and others, there is a “big picture” vocation from the story of creation that only Jesus the Messiah and Lord was able to accomplish and win back for us.

Now, in Christ, like the first humans, we are called again to live in God’s blessing and life because Jesus exercised dominion over the powers of this world and subdued evil through his death and resurrection. Our “big picture” vocation has been restored. In Christ we once more enter into God’s creation mandate as we announce its restoration to the world. Jesus has made it possible for humans to live in this world as fully formed human beings and to repair the world. This is the life-giving good news we announce: Jesus’ victory and recovery of our vocation. In Christ, we can once again live in God’s blessing and bring his life to the world.

It will not be perfectly experienced until God intervenes in the end to restore all things and consummate the the new creation. But through Jesus-shaped lives, we begin to taste of the age to come.

Jesus’s followers themselves were to be given a new kind of task. The Great Jailer had been overpowered; now someone had to go and unlock the prison doors. Forgiveness of sins had been accomplished, robbing the idols of their power; someone had to go and announce the amnesty to “sinners” far and wide. And this had to be done by means of the new sort of power: the cross-resurrection-Spirit kind of power. The power of suffering love.

• N.T. Wright

Monday with Michael Spencer: A Chronicle of the Journey (2008)

Monday with Michael Spencer
A Chronicle of the Journey (2008)

In April of 06, I felt God instructing me to resign from the church I was serving. It was the church our family called home for a decade. I’d served them for 12 years. I had no idea that it was the end of almost any sense of spiritual “home” at all, and the beginning of a season of much change.

In May of that year, my son left home for college. In June, my daughter married. A few weeks later she would move to another state and temporarily quit college. (She’s graduating OSU in a few days, and I am very, very proud. But at the time, it was tough.)

In July of 06, my mother, who was living with us, came to the breakfast table and started speaking in a confused manner. Fourteen hours later, she was dead.

In September, I turned 50. The empty nest and the second half of life threw the party. I wouldn’t book them if I were you. Those guys are not much fun.

In these months, I was also trying to begin a home worship fellowship with some hope that, within 2-3 years, it might become the early version of a church. I was trying to preserve what my family had loved about worship in our little Presbyterian church and what I was discovering in the emerging tradition.

Despite many good aspects of that effort, it failed and in the summer of 07, I brought it to a tearful and embarrassing end. Two “church” losses in a year was devastating to my sense of having a spiritual home, and I still haven’t recovered.

In the meantime, God and my wife got together and decided that what I really needed was for her to start down the road to joining the Roman Catholic church. Everything my wife knew about Catholicism she’d learned from me, and she had almost no experience with the Roman Catholic church until Lent of 07. God’s directives to her at that time, however, were so clear that she knew she had to follow them despite the obvious consequences on various levels of our relationship and my ministry.

She told me the news, Pandora’s Box was opened and the Harpies took the keys to my life for the next few months.

Today, she’s somewhere in the RCIA journey and recently thanked me for my “support,” because she has been happier this past year than ever in recent memory. I had to laugh, because my “support” came from an experience somewhere between the rack and a 6 month root canal without anesthesia.

I was literally bombed out of my previous understanding of “the way things are supposed to be in a minister’s life.” It was like living through repeated showings of an imploding stadium, and I was the stadium.

Fortunately, God was determined to keep me in the wrestling ring until I yelled “Bless me.” I don’t have to tell you how that turned out, do I? I can now say “Bless me” in several Biblical languages.

I’ve still got an occasional bit of fight left in me, but the new version of my faith is considerably lighter, more Jesus shaped and – you’re going to love this- quite Shack/Greg Boyd influenced. (Oh calm down. I don’t believe everything Greg Boyd believes, but the last few weeks his preaching has been wonderful in its ministry to my confused heart.)

Oh. Did I mention that God and I are talking a LOT more these days, and I’m learning to recognize the voice of Jesus separate from my own head and the soundtrack of all the religious garbage that’s filled my head and heart for decades?

God provided a sabbatical so that I could have 8 weeks to work on the process of getting down to Jesus basics and knowing who I was in the new terrain of my existence. I appreciate it, because I needed (and need) it.

Simultaneously with all of these events, strange things began to happen to me at my job. Exceedingly strange. For instance, I was criticized for writing in my moleskine during sermons and for going to the restroom. All who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Nothing you’d find interesting, but plenty to make me wake up every day and wonder if someone is filming a reality show about me, with the premise of changing all my certainties when I’m asleep and then watching the confused reaction. If you see Season One on DVD, I’d like to purchase a copy. Maybe I can laugh at the commercials.

Oh, I thought I needed a friend, so I bought a dog. The dog hates me.

When I talk to Jesus about all this recent history, he says things like “It’s all mercy,” and “The only response is to be a servant,” and “What are you here for?” and “Who are the people who simply suffer and pray? Ever thought about them?” and my favorite “Just let me take care of _______________.”

The genuine Jesus, if you can actually get the station, can really be annoying to your natural survival instincts of blame, self-pity and anger.

You see, I’ve been trained my whole life to think like a pietistic Calvinist. There had to be a REASON for all of this. There has to be a LESSON. I get to ask WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN? So picture me spending all kinds of mental energy trying to find what was the great lesson at the core of all of this that, when I learned it, would make it all go away.

Riiiiight.

And when I ask what all this means and what I am supposed to learn, Jesus just asks questions back, or says things like “Why don’t you go down that road and see what happens. You’ll never know if you just pout.” Or “Just obey me tomorrow and we’ll find out.”

There doesn’t seem to be some resounding THEME or amazing LESSON. As Greg Boyd says, from my point of view, it just all seems to be hitting the fan. God BRINGS good out of it, but if I want to say that he caused it all (which I still do for lack of any other way to express faith and confusion simultaneously) with some CERTAIN LESSON in mind, I don’t get very far. Like he said, “Go down the road, and you’ll see what’s there.” Kind of God’s version of “When we get there, you’ll know.”

I’m a fifty one year old guy whose days leading churches in his denomination are probably over, whose wife got burned out in the non-existent “spirituality” of 30+ years of Baptist church life and ministry, who has been at his current job long enough for some people to wish he wasn’t, who has been stationed out on the frontier where there are no churches to shop, who spent so many years thinking so many things in his head were scriptural, reformed and right that it really hurts to have to admit he was wrong, wrong and wrong. In that order.

I’m just a guy with a life, and life is full of failure and loss. I wanted MINISTRY to be the ongoing reward. I wanted USEFULNESS to be my satisfaction. I wanted to be SIGNIFICANT. I wanted the contract to be in place and the insurance to protect me because I was the guy with the Bible. Well, that didn’t go very well, did it?

God thought it was time for all that nonsense to stop, and for the lifelong addiction I’d developed to my church as my universe, my wife as unquestioning supporter and my theology as my version of the inerrant Word of God to end. He made an appointment to pull the teeth, and I was not consulted in advance.

Ordinary life, extraordinary events and stuff that just don’t make no sense all combine to rearrange the furniture of my world. Every time I head for a comfortable seat, God sells it. Every time I look for the comfort food, the fridge is empty. Every time I get out my copy of “Things You KNOW Are True,” the dog has eaten it.

My faith continues. Jesus now fills the picture in a way he didn’t before. I realize I have a lot to learn from simple people who never get into pulpits and who aren’t supposed to know everything in the Bible like I supposedly do. My love for my wife and our Christian marriage continues, and there is much good that was not there before. I returned to church today, alone- something that in my anger I said I wouldn’t do. I was reminded that here I won’t ever be turned away from the table. I prayed for the five who were baptized. I was reminded that the faith goes far beyond me, my time, my preferences and my lifetime. I looked, and there were the people of God, and I was one of them. They asked me to lead in prayer, and the words were more careful than before.

I was grateful. I talked to Jesus and he told me it is all going to be all right, that I’m free to walk the new path as I can, and he will not leave me or forsake me. I felt sorry for my sin, and happy to know my Savior loves me.

Life goes on. Losses, gains, light, shadow, confusion, laughter, tears, God, Jesus, Denise, me.

When I look up from the road, I notice that the lights in the distance are closer and the noise behind me is not as loud.

Good journey friends. See you on up the road.

Sunday with Ron Rolheiser

Sunday with Ron Rolheiser
God’s Quiet Presence in Our Lives

The poet, Rumi, submits that we live with a deep secret that sometimes we know, and then not.

That can be very helpful in understanding our faith. One of the reasons why we struggle with faith is that God’s presence inside us and in our world is rarely dramatic, overwhelming, sensational, something impossible to ignore. God doesn’t work like that. Rather God’s presence, much to our frustration and loss of patience sometimes, is something that lies quiet and seemingly helpless inside us. It rarely makes a huge splash.

Because we are not sufficiently aware of this, we tend to misunderstand the dynamics of faith and find ourselves habitually trying to ground our faith on precisely something that is loud and dramatic. We are forever looking for something beyond what God gives us. But we should know from the very way God was born into our world, that faith needs to ground itself on something that is quiet and undramatic. Jesus, as we know, was born into our world with no fanfare and no power, a baby lying helpless in the straw, another child among millions. Nothing spectacular to human eyes surrounded his birth. Then, during his ministry, he never performed miracles to prove his divinity; but only as acts of compassion or to reveal something about God. Jesus never used divine power in an attempt to prove that God exists, beyond doubt. His ministry, like his birth, wasn’t an attempt to prove God’s existence. It was intended rather to teach us what God is like and that God loves us unconditionally.

Moreover, Jesus’ teaching about God’s presence in our lives also makes clear that this presence is mostly quiet and hidden, a plant growing silently as we sleep, yeast leavening dough in a manner hidden from our eyes, summer slowly turning a barren tree green, an insignificant mustard plant eventually surprising us with its growth, a man or woman forgiving an enemy. God, it seems, works in ways that are quiet and hidden from our eyes. The God that Jesus incarnates is neither dramatic nor splashy.

And there’s an important faith-lesson in this. Simply put, God lies inside us, deep inside, but in a way that’s almost non-existent, almost unfelt, largely unnoticed, and easily ignored. However, while that presence is never overpowering, it has within it a gentle, unremitting imperative, a compulsion towards something higher, which invites us to draw upon it. And, if we do draw upon it, it gushes up in us in an infinite stream that instructs us, nurtures us, and fills us with endless energy.

This is important for understanding faith. God lies inside us as an invitation that fully respects our freedom, never overpowers us; but also never goes away. It lies there precisely like a baby lying helpless in the straw, gently beckoning us, but helpless in itself to make us pick it up.

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: July 28, 2018

Photo by Tyler Neu at Flickr. (Click picture for link)

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: July 28, 2018

Roller Coaster Madness!

There it is, folks — the official POV video of a ride on the old classic wooden roller coaster “The Beast” at King’s Island in Cincinnati. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking the real ride with my grandson as we spend a day together before school begins. The Beast, in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest wooden roller coaster in the world (7,359 feet), is an exhilarating, old-fashioned rush of pleasure, one of many we’ll be enjoying over the course of the day.

I love roller coasters, and it has been way too long since I’ve enjoyed a day of riding. My favorite park is Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio and the best coaster I’ve ridden thus far is this one, the “Millennium Force.”

Their newest one looks like a winner, too. It’s called “Steel Vengeance,” and here is the official POV video of this “hyper-hybrid” coaster. Vengeance breaks 10 world records including tallest hybrid roller coaster at 205 feet tall, steepest drop on a hybrid roller coaster at 90 degrees and most airtime on any roller coaster at 27.2 seconds.

Well, those great Cedar Point coasters (and I’ve only given you a taste of my favorites) will have to wait for another day. But there are new things to try out at King’s Island too, including including the 230 foot tall “Diamondback,” which has ranked among the top 10 steel roller coasters in the world in annual polls.

FACEBOOK MUSINGS…

I have been thinking about extricating myself from Facebook recently. Facebook had the worst day in U.S. stock market history on Thursday when its shares plunged 19%, a staggering $119 billion in market value. Mark Zuckerberg himself lost $16 billion. That, my friends, is a bad day.

The precipitous roller coaster-like drop happened after Facebook CFO “David Wehner said on a conference call with investors that Facebook is “putting privacy first” after the Cambridge Analytica scandal triggered a wave of horrible press, customer angst and regulatory scrutiny around the world,” according to Fox News.

I’m happy to hear they are focusing on this, but I think FB is to be blamed for allowing a great deal of harm to happen through its lack of attention to this in the past few years. We may never know how much damage to our democracy has happened because sinister parties took advantage of social media. And who knows how much of your information and mine has been passed along in ways we might never approve if we knew.

I enjoy using FB to keep up with old friends, communicate with family, let people know what’s happening on Internet Monk, and host the iMonk Community group. But I’m not sure it’s worth it any more.

However, here is an article that warns about some things to consider if you delete FB.

What do you think?
How are you feeling about Facebook and social media these days?

A GOOD NEWS STORY…

From ABC News:

A Colorado resident shared a video of a group of “amazing” kids who returned a wallet they found in the homeowner’s driveway.

Jamie Carlton shared a video that was recorded July 17 on his home’s smart doorbell system of three young kids returning the wallet that had $700 cash inside.

The kids approached the front door and upon ringing the smart doorbell appeared surprised by the automated recording that asked them to leave a message.

“We found your wallet outside of your car and we just thought we would give it back to you,” a young child said. “I’m gonna put it over here so no one takes any money.”

…”If this doesn’t renew or at least refresh your faith in humanity you need help. These kids are amazing, we would love to find them to reward them and thank them. Their parents should be so proud of them. Any help finding them would be great.”

A relative of two of the kids saw the clip on Facebook and put their mom in touch with the homeowner.

Carlton later added to his post that he has been in touch with the mother who he called “a nice lady” with “such great kids.”

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF “HUMANAE VITAE”

From RNS:

How will Pope Francis handle the 50th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical continuing the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on artificial birth control? Will the occasion be cause for joyous celebration or quiet commemoration? Why does it matter?

The answer is twofold. First, Pope Paul’s decree, titled “Human Life in Our Day” and promulgated on July 25, 1968, remains controversial. Debate and dissent have always been part of the Catholic Church, but history recalls an unprecedented tsunami of protest when Paul published “Humanae Vitae” (HV) 50 years ago. The dissent persists.

Second, Paul’s decree banning artificial contraception as intrinsically evil remains part of Catholic moral doctrine, and the pope is the only one with authority to modify defined doctrine, either by his own hand or in consultation with others.

Nonetheless, HV remains both controversial and vulnerable, based as it is on a version of natural law that many scientists consider outdated and incomplete.The late Catholic scientist Thomas Hayes, for example, contended that HV’s definition of the reproductive act ignores the female role and warrants reconsideration. And many theologians warn that preserving an outdated, unscientific stance on birth control will weaken the Catholic Church’s credibility on all sexual issues, not just birth control.

I GOTTA TAKE A ROLLER COASTER BREAK…

From the New York Times:

A female duck in Minnesota has about six dozen ducklings in her care, a remarkable image that an amateur wildlife photographer captured on a recent trip to Lake Bemidji, about 150 miles northwest of Duluth, Minn.

…Mama is a common merganser, a duck found on freshwater lakes. Females can lay up to a dozen or so eggs, according to the National Audubon Society.

But, in a twist, common mergansers don’t incubate only their own eggs. Experts say females often “dump” their eggs in the nests of other birds in an effort to spread out their offspring and increase the chances of survival.

…Some birds, including common mergansers and ostriches, raise their babies in a day care system that’s called a crèche, experts say.

In a crèche, females leave their ducklings in the care of one female — often an older female who is experienced at raising babies, said David Rave, an area wildlife manager who oversees the Bemidji region for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The females at Lake Bemidji, many of which are related, lay eggs that hatch around the same time, he said. Afterward, he said, the adult ducks go off to molt their feathers, leaving their broods in the care of a matriarchal female.

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK…

Why does rain smell so good?

With regard to gender inclusivity, which Bible translation is best?

What is the Democratic story?

Is “Mission Impossible” the best blockbuster franchise right now?

Which water is best to drink for your health?

How did such a simple song with only three chords became the archetypal rock anthem?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT!

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (Section One)

On this day in 1868, following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, was officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Here is commentary by T. J. Stiles to mark this important occasion:

This month marks the 150th anniversary of the Constitution as we know it — the glorious, flawed, unexpected moment when our basic law was transformed into a charter of human rights. Its glories define us. But so do its flaws.

I refer to the 14th Amendment, whose ratification was certified on July 28, 1868.

It shapes almost every issue we debate today: immigration, racial and gender equality, voter suppression, free speech, corporations and federal power. Its history destroys the notion that freedom grew steadily over time — that the founders bestowed liberty on white men, which was gradually extended to others. Rather, the amendment reinvented freedom. It established birthright citizenship, required “due process” and “equal protection” of the law for everyone, and put the federal government in the business of policing liberty. It removed race and ethnicity from the legal definition of American identity.

Before the 14th Amendment, the Bill of Rights protected almost no one. In Barron v. Baltimore, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1833 that those original amendments restrained only the federal government, not the states, and so did not guarantee individual freedoms. Through the incorporation doctrine, the 14th made the Bill of Rights apply to the states, giving those first amendments the powerful role they play today….

…Before the Civil War, states had restricted speech and the press (often singling out abolitionist literature), imposed religious and racial tests for voting and funded Christian denominations; Connecticut and Massachusetts established official state churches for many years. One of the 14th Amendment’s drafters, John A. Bingham, seized the moment to stop this, declaring his intention “to arm the Congress of the United States, by the consent of the people, with power to enforce the Bill of Rights.” The constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar argues that the framers’ comments show how even the Second Amendment must be read in light of the 14th. All in all, this was a revolution — a broad reimagining of individual rights and federal power.

…The 14th Amendment is felt by all of us, every day. If it did not invent freedom, it transformed and strengthened it, codifying a universal definition of individual rights and national identity that has been an example to the world.

A UNIQUE COLLABORATION…

Thirty years ago, in mid-1988, a super-group in music was accidentally formed. George Harrison had a new album called Cloud Nine, and was preparing to release one of its singles, “This is Love.” The record company wanted a never-before-heard track for the B-side of the single. At that time, Harrison had been hanging out in his studio with some friends: Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison. They put together a great track called “Handle with Care,” which the producer knew immediately was too good for a B-side. “Can’t we make an album of stuff like this?” they asked.

Soon a unique band was formed. They determined not to use their own names, but to work together in an ego-free collaborative effort in which everybody sang, everybody wrote, everybody produced — and had great fun doing so.

The result? The Traveling Wilburys, a best-selling album, and international success.