Tall Monastic Guy

Steps to move forward...

The following image has had significant meaning for myself and others the past couple weeks as I've used it to help me consider what I'm heading toward in 2012.

Where do you find yourself in the image?

Perhaps you are standing at the bottom of the steps indecisive having yet to enter into the challenges ahead...

Or maybe you see yourself within the walls safely running around child-like in the forrest on the hill...

Still... Many of us will see ourselves between the two arches... Within the tension of liminal space having left one dimension of life although not yet ready to enter the next. 

An interesting image and question to say the least...

What determines where we see ourselves and the ensuing movements that take place in our next season is inevitably impacted by our addictions.

A Blessing over Denver Neighborhoods

What is a blessing but a rain of grace falling generously into the lives of those in need;

And what neighborhood in our city is without need?

2012... move toward the Shadows

"To the eyes of Christians the incarnation is the irruption of God into human history: an incarnation into littleness and service in the midst of overbearing power exercised by the mighty of this world; an irruption that smells of the stable."

~ Gustavo Gutierrez

This time of year always presents a unique struggle for me. With the NFL playoffs around the corner and college basketball in full swing, I find myself at least on occasion, committed to a television screen. And my ego feels it... 

Social scientist, Rene Girard, would say that our culture, not just in sports and entertainment, along with every culture throughout history has been largely based on competition and winning. 

Can you feel it? ... The reality that a deep sense of rivalry doesn't just stop at the end of the game? It's actually pervasive throughout our culture and at times even among our closest of friends.

Who is pouring the wine?

Earlier this week I was in Texas attending a workshop that helps churches develop a vision and strategy for becoming a “missional” church. Within that two day intensive church staffs were charged with the task of creating a plan that allows them to look outside of their own walls and partner with civic leaders and non-profits who are about the redemptive work of the city. After a full day of placing our energy on strategic discussions and ideas, the architects of the workshop invited us to conclude our day around some good wine and hor d’oeurves.

After engaging a few conversations I had a moment to reflect and observe the room and that’s when I noticed the gentleman behind the catering table who was serving our wine. He was a middle aged Latino man and although I don’t know his story my imagination went its own way. So, I walked over to refill my glass and introduce myself. The look on his face led me to believe it was highly unusual that anyone would break away to interact with him.

Give me that "Old-Time Religion"

Last month, the street community of Denver said goodbye to one of our favorites. For over thirty years "Pastor" Peggy called the streets home. At some point in the last ten years she had a legitimate encounter with God, which resulted in her turning into a driven street evangelist and welcomed her nickname, Pastor Peggy. She was known for that duck tape cross that she placed on the back of all her sleeveless jackets. With courage and a determined Texas smile she'd walk right up to crack junkies and gang bangers and hand them a gospel track along with a cigarette. 

She’d come into the coffee house and knowing my background in ministry she would earnestly ask me questions about the end times and what a 7 headed monster represented in the book of Revelation. (As you could imagine, my answers left much to be desired.)

Her faith was characterized as mostly black and white and a contradictory mix of poverty, grace, and end times judgment. Her faith and the way she lived it was a grace to her and so many others on the streets who loved her. 

Did you catch that? I said her simple fundamentalist faith was life giving!!!

"missional" diversions

A friend recently pointed me to an article called Why the Missional Movement will fail by Mike Breen on the Verge blog which surfaced the following...

"We took 30 days and examined the Twitter conversations happening. We discovered there are between 100-150 times as many people talking about mission as there are discipleship (to be clear, that’s a 100:1). We are a group of people addicted to and obsessed with the work of the Kingdom, with little to no idea how to be with the King."

I am as grateful as anyone for the voices within the missional movement but I'm especially encouraged to hear some healthy self-criticism.  Regarding this idolizing of "missional" I was reminded of the following powerful scene...

  

kicking the bucket...

It seems that many are kept from growing up because of the immature and rigid expectations they have on their first half of life family.

It’s been called the crab bucket syndrome because you try to get out and move on but the other crabs just keep pulling you back in. While I’ve recognized this gravitational pull in my own midwestern small-town rural experience, there’s just as much if not greater challenge for inner city low-income folks for whom material resources seem impossible to come by.

In both of these settings what is typically absent is a bigger vision for something beyond... something greater… further than the sufficiency, safety, and tradition of the bucket.

"Nature is more disorder than order..."

I find the following so hard to deal with and yet there feels to be so much integrity and truth to it. The following seems to synthesize my journey of the past 5 years exceptionally well... 

"Nature is much more disorder than order, more multiplicity than uniformity, with the greatest disorder being death itself! In the spiritual life, and now in science, we learn much more by honoring and learning from the exceptions than by just imposing our previous certain rules to make everything fit. You can see perhaps what Jesus and Paul both meant by telling us to honor "the least of the brothers and sisters" (Matthew 25: 40; 1 Corinthians 12:22-25) and to "clothe them with the greatest care." It is those creatures and those humans who are on the edge of what we have defined as normal, proper, or good who often have the most to teach us. They tend to reveal the shadow and mysterious side of things. Such constant exceptions make us revisit the so-called rule and what we call normal -- and recalibrate! The exceptions keep us humble and searching, and not rushing toward resolution to allay our anxiety."

~ from page 55 of Richard Rohr's Falling Upward: A spirituality for the two halves of life

letting autumn remind us...

We can start from where we are, with what we have, and imagine and work for the healings that are necessary. But we must begin by giving up any idea that we can bring about these healings without fundamental changes in the way we think and live. We face a choice that is starkly simple: we must change or be changed. If we fail to change for the better, then we will be changed for the worse.

~ Wendell Berry

better than "blackberries"

I talk to many pastors whose people are so consumed in their own individualistic poverties of financial, sexual, marriage, work, identity issues that all they can do is laugh when I invite them to engage the marginalized poor who are stuck to our streets.

I get that. After a decade of experience I continue to stumble awkwardly through marriage and parenting, the bills keep hounding me, and I’m continually fighting and failing at my own pursuits of holiness. And this mess actually makes me the perfect candidate for joining God on the Missio Dei.

The scriptures seem to say that when we are nothing, that’s when we’re in a perfect position to receive everything. Moses was a desolate murderer on the run when he became compelled to turn and look at the blazing shrub.

If you look closely at that story in Exodus chapter 3 you’ll notice an interesting emphasis in verse 3 and 4 on Moses “turning aside” to see God’s presence. (The KJV is actually more accurate here.) God is always inviting us, even as messy criminals, to participate in the Missio Dei. But like Moses, life requires that we humbly turn to see the strange forms of invitation.

God’s love doesn’t make sense. It seldom works in tandem with our moral behavior status. Moses was a murderer. So was Paul. And Joseph was a prisoner on trial for rape when he was called to liberate the poor.