Is God Present More or Less When Absent?

Posted: June 25, 2011 in Uncategorized
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The presence of something absent. Well, they call it the via negativa, the way of knowing something is there, deep down on the inside of what seems to be empty, or absent, or silent. Wait long enough and the big void will start speaking.

Maybe that was what philosopher George Bataille meant when he said, “The absence of God is greater, and more divine, than God.”

That can be taken a hundred ways, of course. Does it mean that you’ll miss me when I’m gone? Or that only the absence holds the real mystery? Or that we so often fill up the vast silence with our own noise that it effectively drowns out the sound of God? Is it only when the room is empty enough to echo that we can finally hear?

It can be a slippery slope, this absence business. At least Lawrence Raab thought so when he wrote the following words:

The absence of God … an idea God might have come up with if he’d been French and worried about how to make it through the twentieth century. Do you want this? If I take it away, will you want it more?

Or will you forget? That’s the problem with absence, it leaves itself open to so much.

Supernatural forces, for example. Glowing lights, out of which the aliens appear like anorexic children. Let us help you, they say, although of course they never speak.

Once they just wanted to take over the planet. Now they feel sorry for us, the way God must have felt when he chose to retire into his silence. No more threats. No more angels, either. Only these lost children, come back to startle us, and vanish.

(The Gettysburg Review: Supernatural Forces, Vol. 20, Num 4/Winter 2007, p. 11)

And Who is the Neophyte?

Posted: June 24, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I’ve received some interesting responses to the last post, Notes to Neophytes. Metaphors may easily be confused, so allow me to clarify intent and direction.

That blog post was written for the sake of persons new to the ministry who, lacking experience, find themselves perplexed by what they are encountering. The audience is anyone in that category or who cares about people in that category. The location is universal, any church or minister anywhere. And it’s meant to describe, encourage and guide through what can be a strange new world.

Happy sailing – newbies, oldies, everyone inbetween …

Notes to Neophytes

Posted: June 21, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Neophyte (N): But the search committee told me one thing, dreams they had, and assured me they needed someone just like me to lead them into the next grand era.

ChurchWrinkle (C): Listen well and learn. Search Committees lie to their candidates, but not that way, not because they are malicious. It’s because they are so hopeful. So they paint a story of how things could be, but not what they really are. You will always find the truth after the blush of courtship is over.

N: I keep preaching and teaching about the way of faith, of Jesus, and all the rest. But it seems like we make decisions just like any other community group might. I don’t see much difference except we might say a prayer first.

C: Yes, it’s like that. And because you are so idealistic it is troubling. You believed you were called to a very high-minded way of life, and you were. But not all people are, though they all live side-by-side in the church. You always have to keep a spectrum of commitment in mind; some are very faithful and committed, and are motivated by the highest ideals. They are a slender minority. Next are large numbers who do it because they somehow feel they are supposed to – an ethic of obligation. And then there are the consumers. Church is like a religious WalMart, just shopping for the best deals. This is your introduction to human nature. They are all there, side by side, but motivated differently because the depth of faith is different. You’ll have to accept this, learn to work with it. You will observe some of the greatest virtue ever known in this place. And you will become acquainted with its opposite. 

N: But some people are so selfish, so power-hungry. How can they call themselves Christian, I mean, by the way they act?

C: There are some of those and their negative energy can ruin it for everyone else. They even can do great harm to the church in the name of some principle, a smokescreen for their own egotism. But don’t focus on them. Focus on the many remarkable people who make this world better just by virtue of the fact that they are in it. Focus on the beauty all around you. Focus on the things people didn’t have to do but did anyway, just because it was right and compassionate. Choose to focus on these things, even when other people rattle the cages and claim that the sky is falling. Be something else, don’t settle, and don’t get pulled down by their gravity.

N: At first it seemed like they adored me, I could do nothing wrong. But more and more it seems like I get blamed for anything and everything, even the things they are responsible for. How can this be?

C: The adoration is an illusion and so is the blaming. If you dare to be who you have been called to be you are like a movie screen upon which people project every wish or frustration or left over issue they had with someone. Don’t be that. Be who you really are, deep down. That will last after their projections have come and gone.

N: But they gave me authority to lead, and then resist my leadership. Why? Why don’t they just hire a secretary, a custodian, a chaplain? If they know what they want already, just hire someone to to implement their desires. They say they want leadership, but I’m less and less convinced. I mean, don’t call a pastor. Just hire an administrator.

C: In the same way there is no free lunch so there is no free leadership. They, the people, temporarily confer authority on you. It is provisional and can be withdrawn, at least in our free church tradition. Focus on the vision you share and help them to discover. Love them and in time – sometimes a long time – they will love you back. And when they love you then they may be responsive to what you have to say, the directions you point, the wisdom you share. But that authority is not often conferred before the trust is earned, not entirely. The church is dying for lack of leadership, that’s a fact. They both desire and fear it. And people are so afraid they will lose some kind of control they usually tread water in place, pretending to go somewhere when they are not.

N: But I’ve prepared academically and spiritually for this. I’m ordained by the same church that has affirmed my calling, told me how important this role is. And I take it seriously. They set me apart for this. And then I share some things and they look at me like I just landed from Mars.

C: Well, you have just landed from Mars. It is the Mars of what they don’t know and the fear that you will confuse them with ideas that don’t make sense. You have to become an earthling before you can talk about your experience on Mars. It takes time. Be patient. Don’t be anxious. Some will have positive regard toward your ordination. Others will see you as a paid professional because that’s how they see the rest of their world. Don’t get trapped by all those perceptions; know who you are and whose you are.

N: Everybody seems to get upset about what we can and can’t do, how limited we are. I look around and all I see is bounty, potential, provision and blessing. But all I hear instead is “we can’t.” They sing a constant song of scarcity. How can I convince them that we have to walk by faith and trust?

C: By believing it yourself, Pilgrim, by believing it yourself.

From Iraq to Jordan to Missouri

Posted: June 18, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I met her this morning, a volunteer with a children’s program for refugees. But her own story was just as interesting as the stories of those she was helping – children of war.

In her former life, as a professional in Iraq, she brought her education and experience to a career in banking. And then everything changed. It was Desert Storm II that did it. Once the invasion took place her country careened into civil strife. Because she was doing banking for Americans, she was painted as a collaborator. She lost everything. And as a result she fled the country, right along with hundreds of thousands of others who had the resources and connections to get out. Her destination was Jordan. From Jordan she found her way into the United States, landing in Columbia, Missouri.

Here in Columbia her credentials from past education and experience are irrelevant. She had to start from zero and she is no longer in banking. Now she works with children who have been traumatized by war. And in our conversation I told her that she was not alone.

Christians in Iraq belong to the Chalcedonian Orthodox Church – one of the most ancient Christian groups in the world. They still conduct their services in Aramaic, the tongue of Jesus. Just before Desert Storm II took place, the Bishop of the Chalcedonian Church in Iraq was in St. Louis, and I and a number of clergy from other traditions met with him. And his message was this: There will be an unintended consequence of your actions and it is this: The Church in Iraq will be decimated.

Why? Muslims and Christians had lived harmoniously as neighbors for centuries. Christians were permitted to practice their faith freely and openly. What came after the invasion was the result of an association. Even though Christians in Iraq had little to do with Christians in the West, except on a religious level, they were painted as being affiliated with them. In other words, Iraqi Christians were seen as collaborators with the invading forces. That could not be less true, but perception shapes much.

Very quickly churches were bombed, desecrated, and vandalized. Christian shopkeepers were harassed and their stores bombed or boycotted. Christian neighbors were shunned. Their assets were seized. They became unemployable. And in the end, a huge number of Christian Iraqis were forced to flee the country. They became refugees in neighboring countries that were tolerant toward Christians.

The number of Christians in the Middle East has steadily declined – not only in places like Iraq, but in Israel as well. Palestinian Christians, also part of some of the most ancient Christian traditions, have been repressed because they are, well, Palestinian. For instance, Bethlehem has seen a thoroughgoing exodus of Christians during the past two decades.

And that brings us back to my new friend, this Iraqi woman who brought her life in a suitcase to start over again. I’ve personally had times in my life when I had to start over again, but never like that. Somehow she is transforming what was terrible into an avenue for more service, more healing and more life. Life’s unfair, that goes without saying. But hope abounds. In Iraq, Jordan and yes, in Columbia, Missouri.

Economies of Scale

Posted: June 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Economies of Scale

It is hard and not hard to see
this conquest for
what we think we must have
these captives, ghosts
keeping us captive
in our keeping of them

I love this, we say
and this, and that
even though the word, love,
turns pale and thin
when confused with
what we grasp

To make the adored
a possession
some talisman locked in our fist
creates shadows, little outposts
of me, the other shrinking
day by day

I saw the tattoo on her arm
a name, some lover from
then or even now
and wondered if he
was thrilled to have his tag
on the outside of her skin

The dish breaks, and we moan
remembering when we first
beheld its graceful line
how fortunate its falling
our flinch at the sound
teaching what love is
and surely what it is not

Human Nature and all that Jazz

Posted: June 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I just re-watched the haunting movie, The Pianist, and came away with questions that won’t leave me alone.

The story is set in Poland of the second world war with the ghettoizing of all Jews and a corresponding attempt to exterminate them. No matter how many times and different ways that I engage this history the impact is always the same. I am led to reflect on the several thousands of years that our species has roamed the planet, dominated it, and contended with one another for the sake of power or possession. The review is not good. And here is the question, in one form or another: Can you think of any species that has done more harm than our own? And the second is liken unto it: Can we really continue to believe that human nature is “basically good,” that we are getting better every day in every day, that in the long trajectory of civilizations there is really such a thing as progress?

Let’s see, address this over a cup of coffee. Right.

I do think we are the most harmful, destructive species known to earth. Like no other we systematically destroy entire groups for a variety of reasons. We exploit whole planetary systems, wage intercontinental wars, and direct huge sums of resources doing so. Among all the species we know what we are doing as we do it. Animals kill for food or to protect themselves. Instinct takes over. But we are able to carefully plan our malice with deliberate forethought. We’re a menace.

And the history of our species in the world also includes compassion, creativity, gestures of love, sacrificial giving, selfless acts of bravery and kindness, and solidarity with the suffering of the other. Go figure.

Saints and sinners are we.

It is not as simple as attributing vice to primitives from the past or savages in the present. Very often their virtue far exceeds our own. There are monsters in the present day and saints in the past, and vice versa. Heinous acts take place close at hand and far away.

Some would say that the brain is evolving, and we are growing into enlarged and increasing consciousness. Well, in The Pianist, I was reminded that some of the most exceedingly intelligent and  “cultured” people of the time embodied the greatest evil. I have personally witnessed, on a smaller scale, people who were characterized as educated and civilized acting in ways much worse than any simple beast in the wilderness. So intelligence, as a measure alone, does not insure anything approaching moral life, wisdom or love. Sometimes rational intelligence enables exactly the opposite. Nuclear power can light cities or demolish them.

Is there a growing spiritual consciousness? Well, for some. But I think people of deep spirit are in a clear minority, certainly not confined to this particular historical moment. And they are not located in some places and not others. There is a scattering of these centers of spirit. And that’s why, I think, so many religions have ended up doing more harm than good; they were, in the end, not guided by some advanced spiritual awareness but rather by the same human nature that brought about all the suffering in the first place.

We are all these things, of course. And the future is not automatically insured by the development of technology. That may or may not insure progress. Without a clear moral compass, humble connection to the spiritual dimensions of life and some sense of life that transcends the self, the technology we create, in the end, may become our end. Unless guided by a moral hand it becomes an exceptionally efficient and effective tool of destruction. As Alfred said to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Night, “Some men just want to see it all burn.”

The difference will not be found in being either smart or dumb. Evil comes out of both. The difference will not be found in some cultures and not others – virtue and vice are found everywhere. Scratch the surface of respectable people and we are driven by a raw combination of instinctual drives, grasping after survival and a deep longing for something more than all that, what the apostle Paul referred to as our lower and higher natures.

Once upon a time, at the broad intersection of earth and sky, a cross was raised to destroy what God had sent to unite. It is there that we gaze upon an unmasked description of the dark underbelly of our humanity and the self-emptying nature of God’s love. In that vast contrast between the best of what God does and the worst of what we do there exists a latent, potential possibility. The inescapable questions haunt us: Which shall it be? Will higher spiritual consciousness overcome the reptile in each of us? In the end, can something as simple as faith triumph over evil and all its attendants?

These are the questions of the world. They have not gone away. We must answer them, individually or collectively, or else the reign of the worst will eclipse another kind of reign, the reign of love, peace and joy. Such a way may actually be foreign to our human nature, unnatural when compared to the track record of our species. In other ways not. However it turns I’m betting on resurrection. I’m believing that, in the end, a different kind of reign will overcome, even when the darkness seems impenetrable.

Hope.

A Good Pizza and a Good Baptism

Posted: June 11, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Let’s face it, the excellence of the pizza is in the ingredients. Of course, there are other factors like the composition and preparation of the dough and the type of fire. But mostly it’s the ingredients and what they do to and with each other. I am reminded of this because I’m sharing a slice with friends right now. The combination of factors is just about right. Yum.

The same is true of spiritual formation, especially as we think of children and youth. It’s the ingredients and how their flavors all mix together that makes the difference. If, on the one hand, spiritual formation takes place in isolation, separated from the whole community,  it will have one sort of outcome. In that case faith usually ends up looking like a piece of information that was dumped into somebody’s head without the benefit of experiencing it first hand in the gathered community. It’s abstract. And something you graduate from.

In contrast to this is a well-assembled and baked Christian where all the essential ingredients of spiritual formation combine for a delicious outcome. There is broad multi-generational learning, parental engagement and modeling, direct encounters with pastors and spiritual mentors in the congregation, the first-hand experience of seeing/knowing a community worship, serve, learn, deal with problems, and support one another when life is hard. Strong and enduring spiritual formation won’t take place apart from these.

Tomorrow a bunch of young people will be splashing through the waters of baptism. Their arrival at that pool is preceded by much love, teaching, mentoring, a shared journey of faith, and an entire church family that has embraced and is embracing them. And that kind of experience, and its impact, will be qualitatively different than arriving at the same pool without those things.

What kind of spiritual formation do I desire for our children and youth? Well, the same as my pizza: Gimme the works, please. Put all the ingredients together so they can work their magic. And then let it bake until the flavors run all the way down into the dough. You never forget that kind of taste.

The Strange Case of the Yin/Yang Flower Girls

Posted: June 6, 2011 in Uncategorized
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What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the words Yin and Yang? Probably you imagine the unity symbol of dark and light intertwining mirror opposing parts. Or you may think of the roots of the concept in ancient Chinese metaphysics. It exists in Confucianism. And Taoists draw upon it as it is found one time in the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu. The basic concept is that opposites need one another, and exist because of each other. Only when both sides of an opposition are recognized, when pairs become twins, can the whole be known: Day and night, cool and warm, male and female, even and odd, north and south …

But when I think of the Yin and Yang I now think of flower girls at a wedding. Let me explain.

It was the typical wedding. The guests had arrived and taken their places. The long preparations were finally at their end and the actual event was commencing. The groomsmen stood in a line in front, like so many penguins. The bridesmaids strolled somewhat awkwardly down the aisle. One almost fell off her shoes. And then, preceding the Bride, the flower girls made their entrance. There were two. I will name them Yin and Yang.

Yin was maybe six years old and understood her role well. She was preparing the way of the bride and as she walked up the long, carpeted avenue she scattered rose petals left and right. Yin had a regal air about her, as one carrying a treasure up to the palace.

Yang was younger, perhaps four, and she followed behind Yin. She, too, sensed the importance of the moment, how the whole assemblage was counting on her to do her part. But somewhere along the way the very young Yang had not quite understood the flower girl memo. Because as Yang walked up the aisle,  she dutifully retrieved each and every rose petal left behind by Yin, filling her basket.

On the way to their destination Yin and Yang had both scattered and gathered, arriving with one basket empty and the other full. Together they comprised two sides of the same flower girl, each having offered what the other lacked.

Once upon a time Jesus said something about the first shall be last and the last shall be first. He was always talking paradoxes. And of course, the first and last need one another to be what they are.

In my mind they will be casting and gathering forever, Yin and Yang will. Maybe they always have been.

The Invasion of the Cicadas

Posted: June 3, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Just thirteen short years ago, in Lewinsky spring, just as a certain president was going underground, so were the Cicadas. Their rising up in the thawing of spring, this cyclical arch of springing forth from suspended animation, led to the surging song of males that would lure sacrificial females to their job, dropping like, well, cicadas once their eggs were laid.

And now, as a part of renewal and return, they are back. By the billions they are back. On May 25, not too far off from certain predictions of the end of the world, they starting popping out of their tiny holes in the ground. Their name was legion, which was of some concern for the apocalyptically minded.  But in time, a very short time, they will disappear as quickly as they came. And one morning we will go outside and be greeted by a deafening silence.

So what is their purpose in the great big scheme of things? What part of the food chain do they occupy? And why the odd interval, this thirteen-year slumber between insect-scale orgies of mating and giving birth?

We must resist an interpretation from the human point of view as their existence most likely has little to do with homo sapiens.

Did they serve as an alarm clock for long-hibernating creatures we’ve never seen? Or did they go underground one time, in escape from, say, an impending ice age, or a great atmospheric disturbance caused by a rogue meteor, and stay subterranean for maybe thirteen years, until the coast was clear? And did that just become a habit, even though there was no more ice or no more atmospheric disturbance? Face it, habits are hard to break.

I just drove past a bus stop where a man was beating them off as though the furies of hell had just descended. They must have thought him a tree. Or another rather large cicada.  He was shouting at them as he sliced his arms to and fro. I’m not sure what the cicadas thought about the incident, but I am sure that the bus stop man believed he had entered a battle of epic, of biblical proportion.

I’m betting the farm on a more mystical role for the winged, singing creatures. It might be that they show us and show us exceptionally well that the end of the world does come. But it comes in cycles, time and again. So if their particular and limited cycle of life exists within the great big cosmic cycle of life that might be saying something to us about our species. Just what that is, I’m not sure. But even if I was sure I wouldn’t tell. Because you would say that he’s just got cicada on the brain, it’s clouded his mind, there is buzzing in his ears. And you might be right.

Of God and Tornadoes

Posted: May 31, 2011 in Uncategorized
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The following meditation is from Deb Ward, a Broadway Christian Church member and leader of our Stephen Ministry. She makes the clear connection between nature storms and any storm of life and the kind of theology that can interpret them all:

The Lord said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came the sound of a gentle whisper.

(Kings 19:11-12)

 On Sunday, May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado with winds of over 200 MPH dropped down on Joplin, MO, flattening over 800 dwellings, 500 commercial properties, and leaving a death toll of at least 138. Here in Columbia, a safe distance away, we felt the agony of those who lost loved ones, homes, businesses, their workplaces, and their sense of personal safety to the raging, monstrous storm. The sobering reality was that the storm in Joplin, while the worst of the season’s tornadoes, was only one of a number of tragic acts of nature that struck over a three-month period, including the massive tsunami in Japan.

Gathered in our sanctuary, our safe place, at Broadway on the following Sunday, we listened as Pastor Tim related his experience of “being there” for his brother, a Joplin resident, in the storm’s aftermath. He shared photos, told us things the media didn’t, and talked about picking through the rubble of his brother’s business, helping as he could.

Tim reminded us that this storm was not an act of God, but rather an act of nature. God and nature are not the same. Ancient religions could not discern between God and nature, but we can. We know that this storm was not evidence of God’s wrath. God was not in that tornado. The tornado was a random act of nature, not an act of God.

Life brings us many kinds of storms, whether acts of nature, circumstances beyond our control, or situations we help to create. We can feel broken. But Tim reminded us that while the road ahead may be broken by the storm, God brings restoration and hope.

God is not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but rather in the small still voice. God is there for us in all of the storms of life. In a world full of uncertainty, God is the one constant we can rely on. God speaks in the gentle whisper that guides us. God is the source of abundant love. God brings comfort and healing. Take needed action. But also be still. Know that God is near. Listen for the small still voice, and find hope in it.

(Based on sermon by Tim Carson, May 29, 2011.)

 Creator God, thank you for your many blessings. We ask that you would comfort the tornado victims in their losses. Help those in storm-torn areas to accept assurances of your love and mercy. As we face the storms of life, help us to calm down from the adrenaline rush that fear brings. Help us to listen so that we can hear your gentle whisper. May we always remember your faithfulness to us and your love for us. ~ Amen

_____________

To read the full manuscript of Tim Carson’s sermon, And the Lord was not in the Wind (May 29, 2011) click here:

http://www.broadwaychristian.net/article292669.htm

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