Family Worship Songwriting Retreat

Today I'm driving with Katie Heckel and Matt King up to a little cabin in North Mississippi to spend a week eating, praying, singing, writing, and recording as a little family. Abbye Pates will be there as well and Eric Papp. Sadly, Brian Mulder from Michigan and our friend Aislinn from Vermont are snowed in and too sick to make it this week! (Insert incredibly sad face)

Still, it will be a great time to retreat and create. I'm boxing up a little recording studio setup and hauling it to the cabin for the next few days. It will be exciting to write and record a worship album this week. I have no idea what will come of our time together! We're hoping for lots of collaborative creative coolness.

Should be fun, I better get to packing since I've waiting till now to get started! Hope to have a little worship CD available sometime later this Spring though. Pray that this week will be fruitful as we get together and seek Jesus and together work to 'tell the story and tell it well' in song.

Advent

I'm in North Carolina at the moment visiting my girlfriend. I'm hoping we can sneak out of a class requirement to go see Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God in Durham tonight! If you are not aware of Peterson's Christmas storytelling album please do yourself a favor and buy it immediately and listen to it a few thousand times this Christmas season.
(www.andrew-peterson.com)

Tis Advent time, which is really the Christian New Year season. I've been thinking alot this past half a year that so many of the things we in the Church take as metaphor, symbol, or illustration aren't metaphor, symbol, or illustration at all. Advent is certainly not a sweet symbolic idea about how we all get some vague new beginning. It is certainly not a moral metaphorical nicety about how everybody is just waiting for a new love, an inocuous hope.

No. No, it's a fact. It's a visit. It's a living, blood and bone, breath and sweat, life and death thing. And it's definitely not some self-willed discovery of internal human strength - it is the hope of a Saviour, a King, and a Kingdom from Heaven itself.

Jesus is not a metaphor, not a symbolic construct, not a sermon illustration.

And Behold He is coming.

Forth-giving, forgiveness

I read a little Walt Wangerin, Jr. this morning at my friend Kevan Chandler's house. The collection of stories is called "Ragman" and I recommend picking it up. The title story is only two and a half pages long and you'll likely be crying by the end of it. Later in the book is a letter written to Walt's brother Greg on the occasion of Greg's marriage. Two things

Walt said that struck me:

Firstly, Vows are unchangeable things in the midst of constantly changing circumstances. We always breath out a shaft of clear light into a strange unknown when we make a vow to love another person. We never really know all that it means. We cannot know. Mystery. Meaning and implication are too much to grasp. We choose to love because love is true, we lay down our lives like Jesus not because we really understand what we are doing, but because it is the only True thing to do.

Secondly, Forgiveness is the most important part of a marriage. I can't help but notice that this word is made out of the word 'to give'. Forgiveness means "forward-giving" or "forth-giving", to give forth. When hurt, fear, sin, selfishness, or any other means of division has brought brokenness and we've withdrawn ourselves from each other, forgiveness is how we give-forth our love again. It's the only way we can draw near in love after the divorcing power of sin.

God has forth-given his love to us after we were taken from him by sin and selfishness. Jesus walked toward us and into our sin, through it to kill it on the Cross, and gave himself to us. Forth-giving. Forgiveness.

We have been removed even from ourselves by sin! God has purchased us. The Son has given the children back to the Father and the Father brings forth the healed Bride and gives her to the Son. Likewise God is forth-giving us back to ourselves. Because he has forgiven us, we can forgive ourselves. No longer must we be divided and at war within, living in guilt, regret, hatred or bitterness.

God gives us back to himself, gives us back to ourselves, and we imitate. We give ourselves back to him and to others. We forth-give our love to others when in unforgiveness we had removed our love from them. And here's a last mystery: even we participate in the giving of others back to themselves when we forgive.

Never withhold love. It is for giving.

Stillness vs. Idleness

Because I often feel either afraid of stillness or guilty for spending my time in it, I'm writing this blog in case the struggle is familiar. I think it is a primary battle in our world: to have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Stillness is a discipline of faith. Stillness is believing that God's words and presence are worth paying attention to. Often we are afraid to be truly still before God in case we find that he 1. doesn't speak or else 2. speaks things we do not wish to hear. What if his voice is absent or cruel? It is an act of deep trust to truly cease our activities, our striving, our own filling of space and wait in stillness for Jesus' voice.

I remember reading that the purpose of all the spiritual disciplines is to empty ourselves completely so that there would be living room for God to speak into - to inhabit. In spiritual disciplines we intentionally create a void that our false-selves and all the voices of the world have previously inhabited. That void, once allowed, hungers for the Creator's voice to speak. Psalm 104:30 says, "When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth."

How many other voices are competing to 'create' the substance of our lives? And what good have all those voices done for the work of renewal or redemption in this world?

Idleness, on the other hand, is an act of faith-less-ness. Idleness is believing that nothing can be done, there is nothing worth believing in or fighting for, no vision of hope worth working toward. So in hopeless apathy we stagnate or indulge in all the destructions of mere distraction. When life loses all lustre we sink into lust. It is when we loose all sensitivity that we become captives of sensuality.

"But I feel irresponsible when I try to be still. I feel like I should be doing something." I've spent much of the last ten years struggling with this question of what is valuable to God and what it is to be truly responsible toward the call to follow Jesus. I've found that being still, creating space, gathering attentiveness, listening, waiting, dwelling, prayer and the like are actually quite hard work - especially in our culture where we tend to qualify the validity of our lives by the degree to which we can keep up with machine-like productivity and efficiency (the emptiness of so-called success).

All truly worthy work is borne forth as an embodiment of the small, slow, whisper of God found only in stillness. It may be that even when God speaks at his loudest we can fail to hear him. Are hard-heartedness and lack of stillness the same thing?

Stillness or Listening is a response to a God who is speaking. I've been noticing the past several months the incessant emphasis throughout the Scriptures to listen to God. Yet we feel irresponsible when we 'stop getting things done' so we can listen. If that's the case, then 'getting things done' is what's irresponsible. That is a life of failing to respond to the Speaking God. Idleness then may actually manifest as busyness. They might as well be the same thing since they are both ways that we either disbelieve the value of anything God might say or avoid communication because there are things that feel more productive (important).

The values of God are moving in the complete opposite direction from the values of the world. That's why repentance (completely turning around) brings us face to face with the Kingdom of Jesus. Isaiah 30:15 says:

"This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.' "

If we were machines there would be no real need to do much listening. There would also be no need for beauty, tenderness, laughter, craftsmanship, poetry, song, embracing, aromas, moonlight, kindness, weeping, dancing, and on and on. Busyness doesn't make us more human, neither does idleness. Stillness, listening, losing track of time in love for something True, the deeply beautiful inefficiency of relationship - these are some of the reasons God spoke lovingly into the eager, attentive void.

Bike rides and Bloody Noses

My roommates were up before 5am and therefore so was I. Not being able to get back to sleep, I decided to spend the rest of the morning at the local coffee shop. I read some Seamus Heaney, some Malcolm Guite, Luke chapter 4, and I meant to read some of The Lord of the Rings. But mostly I eavesdropped on other people's conversations, drank coffee, and ate an amazing turkey and cheddar croissant (1200 flaky pastry layers, people).

A university professor and two students discussed how religion was the uncredited and single most formative force motivating all historical activity. I listened as they traced the sad and taut line of Bible interpretation abuse during the civil war period. How do we use the Bible to support our own agendas? How do we conform God to our image rather than laying ourselves down to be transformed into his?

I was there for nearly four and a half hours listening to several groups of people. I was amazed at how literally every conversation I heard eventually gravitated toward questions about the Bible, Jesus, Church, and relationships in the context of faith. I started noticing repeating themes of frustration about: a lack of strong conviction and trust in Scriptural communication, lack of humanness and intimacy in large or modern churches, and a lack of rootedness and depth in specific Christian meaning.

I listened as the list was repeated with positive examples: "I love the close, simple, intimate feel", "I want to know the specifics of what we believe and why we believe it, I love theology", "He preaches the truth even if it's uncomfortable", "I want to know what the Bible really means", "I miss the old hymns and prayers". And so on.

I read a quote recently from an article about why the upcoming generation is not committing itself to Christ. The gist was that we're not giving them anything substantial enough to grab a hold of. My favorite quote was this, " We think they want cake, what they really want is steak and potatoes, but we just keep giving them cake."

In an effort to be 'sensitive' to those we want to bring into Jesus' Kingdom we've just become people pleasers who sigh out a message so vaporous and innocuous that the people who actually are seeking for something solid to believe in find nothing substantial, specific, or definite enough to merit any meaningful commitment. Too often the church is functioning like a business - we want to create a product that will please the largest number of people so we can make the most money so we can afford to feel successful. And in order to please the largest number of people you must edit the Gospel till it's so vague and allegorical and personally malleable so anyone can shape it to their needs rather than be shaped by it. Chesterton wrote (and later Rich Mullins sang) of the Creed, "I did not make it, no it is making me."

My main point though is that we're fooling ourselves into thinking that people want this generally moral, self-help, business-model Christianity. Actually they don't. They want something with definition, specificity, clearly outlined context, vision, mission, meaning, even tradition and liturgy. People are so hungry for something to provide a stark contrast to the rest of the world. A Kingdom of Heaven. They long for a place that feels foreign to them or makes them uncomfortable as long as it is true. Those who are truly seeking are seeking something that wont pull any punches, they are looking for a God who will shape them, a great King and Lord who, like Rich Mullins said, "will bloody your nose then give you a ride home on his bike".

The Hidden City (or Running)

The Hidden City

Today I was running in the beautiful park
down the quick wide path
breathing fast, hurried scents
and blurred green, peripheral light,
dark, heavy, quick thudding of careless feet.
It left me out of the breath, windless.
All this in an effort to chase down health,
fitness, some illusory beauty.

I had to stop to let the wind catch me.
Sweating in the stillness there
I saw the light roll out from beneath the door
like the train of the King's courtly robe -
the making of a bright slanting path.
Every intimately detailed face
on every little leaf turned into that Way
and showed another world through stained glass -
a slow, wasteful, everlasting sigh.

Then my heart slowed enough to nearly die
and a slender thing like starlight
twinkled near my feet - a spider's invisible work
unseen but for careful payment of attention
and the kindness of low evening light.
Before my eyes an entire Kingdom wavering in and out of sight.
A leaping prismatic array, a hidden city
ignored, stepped on, disbelieved.

Hutchmoot, shaping, hello again Middle Earth

Once upon two weekends ago my dear friend Abbye Pates and I drove up to Nashville, TN, sadly leaving her husband Jeff behind in Memphis, to attend Hutchmoot. What the heck is Hutchmoot you say to me? Well, it's a gathering of rabbits. Or.. um... a meeting of people who read books that rabbits like, or a meeting of rabbit-people.

Well, it's a meeting of people who follow the Rabbit Room blog community, which is Andrew Peterson and friend's website (www.rabbitroom.com) that's named after the room at the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, England where C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and the rest of their buddies met and discussed their creative work, sharing their lives and faith. Coincidentally, it is where Brian Mulder and I met one year ago this next week to kick off our European galavanting expedition. The shepherd's pie was delicious and I signed the guestbook, perhaps sitting where some of my literary heroes sat in that little pub.

So Abbye and I went to Nashville to immerse ourselves in Story and Song in an effort to grasp a vision for the Kingdom and what it means to live in it and help others find it by using the life and gifts God has given to us. It was a refreshing weekend and too short of one as well.

Walt Wangerin, Jr. was a keynote speaker. Have you heard of him? I read "The Book of the Dun Cow" earlier this Summer and was amazed. It's a beast fable that will surprise you with it's whimsy, intensity, and depth. I'm looking forward to reading the two follow-ups in the series. I should write a string of blogs based on reflections from his talk, but for now I will simply include my favorite quote. This quote drew in my focus to a sharp missional vision for life and art, for Kingdom living and Gospel Story communication. It was preceded by a story of a boy who, through an encounter with deep trauma, had become entirely dislocated due to the destruction of his world. The boy lost all sense of context and meaning for his life and slipped into a nearly comatose reality of despair and lovelessness. But Walt, as his pastor, surrounded the boy with stories of the True. Walt creatively rebuilt a world around this boy by telling the Bible story.

And we, who are poets, shapers, writers, crafters of many kinds, people- who at any and every point of life- express the truth of God's Story are, "for those who have no world, weaving the world around them".

Our lives and work are always creatively expressing this True Kingdom and the identity of the True King Jesus. We choose to live a contrasting story. We embody His righteousness, we incarnate the tale, we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land. We shine light from an invisible sun.

I grew up reading "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien. I've read it four times. Immersing myself in that myth as a child prepared me to commit myself to faith in God's Kingdom that still sometimes feels like a myth when I find myself facing the veil of this world. As a child, Tolkien somehow helped me peek underneath that curtain, smell a scented river from another world, or feel a light in my heart that I knew had a source beyond this creation.

So last night I stepped into Middle Earth for the fifth time. I'm excited to go there. I'm excited to remember that "faith is being certain of what we do not see" and to search again as one who longs for his true home country with Jesus. I pray to lead a life that lifts the veil and invites others to enter into that true Kingdom too.

Music and Hospitality

Just got back in yesterday from two and a half weeks of traveling sharing songs and stories with my great friend and sister Katie Heckel. We had a wonderful time visiting with folks, making new friends, and singing and storytelling.

Katie is a great singer/songwriter and worship leader. I love to write and record with her. We finished a CD called "The Isaiah Project" to raise funds for Rafiki Orphanage which Katie supports. She'll be heading back there July 11th for a month of brainstorming and planning for future ministry. And I am hoping to get over there maybe next Summer to deepen my own participation.

Music has the potential to work best in small settings as a way to create room where participants can enter into the stories together through song and sharing. Something I've been thinking about more this past month as we were traveling is the idea of music as a form of hospitality. I am not terribly interested in 'making it' in the music industry or drawing big crowds. I am interested in connecting to personal stories and together with those people connecting (or re-membering) to God's Story.

Some of my favorite times of music sharing have been with less than ten people in someone's living room. The best large concerts I've been to were the ones that felt small in spite of their size.

If music can become a place where people can be welcomed to share their stories and where God himself meets us and integrates us into His Story, then we may have a real point of contact in the home to honor the dignity and 'common sense' of following Jesus as a thing accessible to everyone, not just the professionals.

One last story. I remember someone telling me about agrarian cultures where a family would spend their precious time, energy, and resources to farm the land, to cultivate nearly every aspect of their livelihood by pouring out their lives to put food on their table. So when the family would invite you to sit at their table they were really saying "Come take my very life into yourself. All this family's energy, time, sweat, and blood." The table was where you entered into the result of their life and joined yourself to them.

When Jesus hosts the last supper with his disciples, he lifts up the bread and cup as his very body and blood and invites them to take his own life down into the very core of themselves. In this way, they are being joined to the new covenant life, this transforming and fulfilling Kingdom life. The culmination of Jesus' labour is this act of invitation, of hospitality and incorporation of their lives into His great life, story, and work.

I pray that any music I make, and any time of music sharing might somehow incarnate again that act of divine hospitality. I pray that my whole life, in fact, would be an ongoing act of hospitality where Jesus' invitation to repentance and acceptance of his mighty acts of salvation would dwell and make a Living Room where the weary can find rest.

Duke Summer Institute pt 2: Lament

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.

-Bitter-sweet by George Herbert

This afternoon I let my own face carry the wet and the salt of lament till it made little red roads down from my eyes and spread across my lips and salted my tongue. I watched a middle-aged Sudanese priest put his face to the floor in tears while praying for the middle east, where Muslims, like those persecuting Christians in his homeland, live apart from the peace of Jesus Christ.

I sat amazed at the table with two African American women as they listened to Bob Dylan sing about Medgar Evers' killer and the senseless murder of Hattie Carol. There is pain that doesn't fit my understanding, or my manageable categorizing. I am convicted by the words of Dylan that I have "philosophized disgrace". There is a time for tears.

Phileena Heuertz, from Word Made Flesh, told of what she has been learning among the poorest of the poor around the world. That God is breaking her from her habit of wishing to fix people. Instead, like Jesus, she is learning to enter into brokenness and lament in order to love. We go with the broken, ourselves broken. Like Psalm 126 says, we

go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
and return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with us.

I saw paintings, heard poems, listened to songs all created from places of deep grief and lament today. All exhaled into stunned and somehow hideously happy societies, laments carrying seeds to sow. I say 'hideously happy' because when there was hurt that needed to be grieved or suffering that needed to met... the gravesites were paved over and an amusement park built on top. The word 'hide' is in hideous. Jeremiah speaks:

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.

Jesus entered into our brokenness, he wept, he bled. He did not ignore or belittle. Jesus is not embarrassed.

Let's not be afraid to let our hearts break. To call evil what it is, to name the pain. May our tears be seeds sown in the tired, trampled ground. And when the weeping is done, Oh Lord, when the fallow-rest has been enough, let the ground birth laughter - Light and Breath playing through the leaves of the Tree of Life.

Duke Summer Institute pt 1

I left Oxford Sunday night and drove till about 3am. I slept for a few hours in my car and then finished out the trip on Monday, arriving at Duke University around 4pm. I was tired from the driving but today was so full that I've barely had time to be attend to the weariness. I also drank coffee.

This week is all about the ministry of reconciliation that has been given to us from God (see 2 Corinthians 4 & 5). In morning worship the speaker made the observation that the scriptures say that "God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him".

It doesn't say " so that we might proclaim the righteousness of God" or "so that we might know the righteousness of God" or "so that we might have..." It says, "so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him".

We become, we embody, we incarnate His righteousness in this world. We are a new creation. And we carry on his mission of calling people back into peaceful union with God through Jesus Christ.

Later in the day, I attended our small group discussion for this week, which is led by Malcolm Guite. He is an Anglican priest, poet, and singer/songwriter. The track I'm in is called, "The Shaping Spirit of Imagination; the Arts and Reconciliation." It was fantastic. I can't wait to get back there tomorrow for more!

Malcolm is wonderful. I've already enjoyed one book of his poems called "Saying the Names" which I stole from the coffee table of Abbye and Jeff Pates several months ago. I'm sure that by the end of this week I will be frustrated to have left with as small of an encounter with him as I will have had.

One point that stood out from the small group time was (and I'm pulling just one little thing among so many wonderful things) the need for 'making' over and against 'un-making'. Malcolm told us of a book written about Amnesty International's archives. A book about the de-humanizing effects of torture on both the victims and the perpetrators. The torture was enacted to 'un-make' the victim's humanity, and in various ways the work of evil in this world is to unmake what God has made and called good. To pervert. To mar. The redemptive work of God is remaking, making new.

Our call is to creatively re-invest in the world so that people who have been un-made by evil can be re-made by the creative, dignity-restoring, love of Jesus. In fact, Jesus came to us as a human to restore us to humanness. Sin un-makes humanity. God re-makes humanity. Jesus shows us what it looks like to be human again.

And there are many many other things I'd like to write, instead I'll wait and sit on your couch or at your table. I'll hopefully be near enough to speak quietly, to hear what you aren't saying, and to wonder with you why sighs given in trust and oceans lulling against sand-shores seem to come from the same depths, both oceans, both mysteries, both attended by the Spirit of the God of new birth.

May 2010 Newsletter

1. I just had a long visit with Katie Heckel and heard many great stories about Ghana, Africa. There are more to hear. The trip was wonderful and heartbreaking. So many encounters with child slavery and abuse, stories of orphans kidnapped, and terrifying injustices done to the weakest among us are churning in my heart right now after hearing from Katie. But we citizens of the Kingdom of God pray to bring his will on earth. I'm praying for ways to be at work with Jesus, bringing the message of the cross and contact with His living love. Katie's CD "The Isaiah Project" is on Noistrade. Click here to find it. All donations go to support the orphanage.

2. Brian Mulder's CD is finished! Just last night I uploaded the final mixes to noisetrade.com. Brian flies to San Diego, CA Saturday and will be biking the 3,000 miles across the Unites States with Blood:Water mission's Ride:Well tour to raise money to build clean water wells in Africa. You can download the CD "Somewhere we're shining" for free or you can leave a tip online. Click here to get to it.

3. I'm heading to Duke's Summer Institute Sunday to spend a week in community discussing the mission of reconciliation. "...God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on God's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 19-21

Click here to find out more.

4. June Tour 2010! Katie Heckel and I will be hitting the road for about three weeks to share songs and stories about God's work among the poor in Ghana. We'll also continue to raise funds for Rafiki Orphanage. Keep an eye on www.matthewclark.net where I update my blog and such. I also update twitter pretty regularly. My user name is matthewclarknet if you're into the so-called 'technologies'.

The Lord has reminded me lately through several occasions that he has entrusted his mission to us. We are offered this incredible opportunity to live lives of great meaning, dignity, and value. I am tired of living a life of achievement for myself. I'm weary of living for things that don't really matter. Jesus has a better life. He invites us to be yoked with him and to labour alongside him. We can trust him. We fight together to keep the faith in the 'foolishness' of God. It is his work in this world through us that will result in an everlasting and righteous kingdom. A single word that has become like an endless echoing call in my heart is: participation. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, to become like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Amen. We can pray together to learn more about co-laboring with Jesus and his people.

Like You Said

Confidence in your words, Lord, this is a prayer for my family-
Those born and yet to be born again.
There is a place of springs in the land of exile, the mean-time,
a living seed of hope. Love for the bloom to break open
is strangely watered by the seed itself.

We wait, invested in your words, which are like anchors
in a shifty place. Our survival. Our revival.
Your words came to us over the waters in the late watches
when we were afraid. You spoke to us then and we were created.
Light from the face of the Firstborn, borne still.

The pages turn, they keep me from the Turning-
the weary dream that slithers in a senseless sensual sulk.
Open your mouth, Shiftless One, divide the night from the day.
You and your double-edged sword, the alleviate of your voice.
In your light we see light, the black banners shred and disappear.

You have eyes to see, Lord, and ears to hear.
And we would be like you, groan for us, Holy Unconfused Spirit!
This is my prayer, a brittle-winged thing.
It's grateful for your cradling palms and your warm breath-
Here the Trumpet, the burning bloom from the sky breaks!

It's just like you said. Everything, just like you said.

Life really matters

Yesterday I had a long phone conversation with my dear friend Brian Mulder. He and I toured together last Fall and now he's back in Michigan getting ready to embark on an epic bicyclic exercise of trans-national proportions. He's doing Blood:Water Mission's Ride:Well Tour. If storks (the birds) wore leg garments I could probably qualify to be a trouser model on their behalf. I mean, I just ran a mile non-stop for the first time in my life this past week. I am very proud of that, and ashamed. Brian, on the other hand, will be fine. It is always sweet to be a part of his life and adventures.

Nearly two years ago my roommate Rajesh asked if he could invite his friend, who was in a difficult living situation, to join us here in this house. I really didn't want to say yes. In fact, I said no. Several weeks later, he insisted that his friend needed a better living situation. So I said we could try it if it were only for a little while, since we just didn't have room. So six months became twenty or so months. And now Sashi is heading to California to a new job and I'll be missing a great friend.

When I was in seventh or eighth grade we got our first youth minister at the church were I grew up. Two years ago I flew to East Asia to visit him and yesterday I heard him speaking the spanish that he's learning in Honduras, his new home. A good many years have passed between eighth grade and now. Richard is still a deeply important brother to me, more than I can say.

The middle of June will mean the departure of D. and Corrie Merricks and their two little boys that I love. They'll be closer to their families and new ministry opportunities in Georgia, but four of my 'tent pegs' are getting pulled up from the ground. I begin to realize how I will miss them, how their lives constitute, in part, my life. Things may feel a little strange, a little less secure as they go.

In the bookstore a few days ago, I sat reading book by a woman who interviewed many people -all of them older than one hundred years. One woman remarked that the world was missing the point of life. She said we were too worried about making money, achievement, and acquiring security. The point of life abides in sharing it through relationship.

I am struck by how important the lives of others can become to me. There are many I would love to write about and describe how I love them. We let people into our lives, that vulnerability deserves great respect and care. Love changes us though. And love is real. When I have the patience and the courage to gather attentiveness and wait with Jesus in prayer, I remember how his love is evidenced by a new creation in this frustrated heart of mine. He matters deeply to me. His love is true.

Our lives are a great opportunity to deeply matter in the lives of others. We can take that wonderful risk. Jesus has led the way.

Magic tricks or Good Relationship?

Sometimes I realize that I have believed in a sort of 'magic trick' relationship with God. If I say "In Jesus Name" at the end of every prayer then God will have to listen to me, or do what I say. That sort of thing. This created a lot of paranoia in my mind, because it added up to a belief that God can't be trusted to be good and have integrity - it was my job to keep him in line and make sure he did the right thing. And worse yet, it was up to me to repeatedly convince him to love me.

The Bible gives a better testimony. It's a big relief to learn that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was all his idea in the first place. All this love... he started it. I didn't talk him into it. I didn't come up with it. And he did it because he wanted to do it.

"You didn't choose me, I chose you," assures Jesus.

So I can stop worrying about whether I need to manipulate God. That's a needless effort for two reasons:

1. He's God, he can't be manipulated anyway.

2. He's good, so you don't need to... he always loves well.

There is freedom and peace in God's goodness and integrity and in the choice to love us so well in Jesus, a choice which was made long before I knew anything about it. It's reasonable to entrust ourselves to him wholly and let go of control and fear.

It's a simple point, but I have to re-learn it constantly.

Good News and Fear

I read an account this morning of a guy who became a believer in Jesus when he suddenly realized that for nearly forty years he had been fooling himself into thinking that he was good. He saw in a moment of realization that he wasn't actually good and that he couldn't do anything about it. He remembered what he had heard about Jesus, whom he had previously scoffed at. Only Jesus could make any change in his situation. He believed.

The Gospel is so simple you have to be taught not to believe it.

My two favorite Malcolm Muggeridge quotes:

"We have educated ourselves into imbecility."

and

"The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable."

One of the comments on the conversion account I mentioned above was that a God who threatens people and forces conversion through fear should not be followed. I have found no relief from fear but in the loving invitation of Jesus to be freed from a dependence on myself and the world around me for salvation. As long as my hope lies in anything other than Jesus, all I know is devastating uncertainty. I know better than to trust myself.

My only hope is the payment for sin Jesus made to His Father on my behalf, the ongoing work of recovery from the damage of ruin that the Holy Spirit upholds, and the Home that waits for me.

Without Jesus, my trajectory is fixed on meaningless decay and the desperate dismal fear of helplessness to change anything.

With Jesus, all things are made new and his perfect love casts out all fear.

One of the deepest fears is that, if we really look into it, we'll find that love isn't real. Haven't we seen enough pain to make us doubt that love is possible? We do our best to keep distracted or tangled in intellect. It's too dangerous to look love in the face: what if we find empty sockets and a mocking lifeless skeletal grin? It is frightening. "I'll follow any destructive fancy if I can only protect myself from my deepest fear- the discovery that even God cannot be trusted for his love is a lie!"

I have no magic words, no unstoppable clever turn of phrase. I do believe that the love of God is alive, it's true. The beauty of it will break your heart, the strength of it will carry you to your deathbed, the purity of it will wash away the dark dream of fear. When the morning comes your own face shall shed light enough to lend brilliance to the dew.

Holy

"I walked out into the night and saw a sky that had been wiped clear of its tears, after such a long day. At the edge of the horizon slunk a few strands of ragged cloud, but ringing brightly the bell-stars held their place. Enduring Brilliance. All the storms had been far below them. Hadn't it seemed from against the ground that the smoking clouds had quenched their light? Yet they were untouched. They are promises never reached by decay."

Can you believe that? Isn't it hard to believe that purity exists? That there could be anything that hasn't been turned? That hasn't bent in even the tiniest way to evil and been lost to confusion and perversion?

If it's all been lost then there's nothing to go back to. There's no hope for healing.

But we sing... Holy.

There is One, and only One, who never gave in.

...Holy

There is One, who at all costs, stayed true.

...Holy

All the loss that has crushed and confused our hearts. All the weeping. The volcanic ache that pushes out from beneath your ribcage. The poison that pulses in this world till even beauty becomes banal. Nothing feels natural. Like death, it's all an intrusion.

But it's low clouds. The high holy stars are out of its reach.

...Holy

We've been lost for so long. Everything pure that we've forgotten, there is One who still remembers. The long years that slip through our skeletal grasp, there is One who hasn't grown weary, One whom decay cannot grip.

Let all Israel, those striving, struggling ones, say "his love endures forever."

Poem Day: Thankful for friends

Eyes for eyes

Eyes are for eyes
and faces for faces-
the overlap of voices.

If you hadn't been there when I got home
I would have plummeted from the threshold.

All the strange shapes
that make a stranger less strange
the curves and movements you learn.

We began to sing and the song was the same
I wondered at the waves beginning to bear me up.

I love the years of breathing
that keep the Feather afloat-
the long watch of priestly investment.

When the muscles were tender you helped me
thread my arms and fasten the buttons.

Consuming (life-eating) vs. Creating (life-making)

First off let me admit that I'm ripping this idea off from an article I read written by Andy Crouch which you can find here: http://www.qideas.org/essays/from-purchases-to-practices.aspx

Andy says, "When we purchase, we are simply freeloading off the capacities some other person has developed, and our own capacities change very little or, most often, not at all. But when we practice, we change."

I'm a musician, songwriter, worship leader, storyteller, etc. and I love to record music as well. In short, I love 'making'. I love creating. It's the same reason I love to cook or have conversations. It's a process that ends in an effect which you have been personally invested in over a length of time. It always sounds self-centered but some of my favorite music to listen to is the music I make. Rich Mullins said you shouldn't make music you don't like. It's like lying. But I think the reason I like it isn't because I think it's the best music in the world, but because I'm personally invested in it. I breathed my soul into it and even if it's a little out of tune, the lyrics halting, or the performance messy it remains dear to me. It represents the always moving life-story within me, a sort of index of transformation.

When we consume a mere product there's no personal investment. We are feeding off of the investment of someone else. We experience a sensation of having gone through a process but it soon fades and we hunger again. Andy Crouch's illustration is when we learn an instrument we do not get instant gratification. We slowly develop an ability over time. We really do live through a process wherein we invest ourselves in making something.

That joy lasts, even grows over time.

I thought about reading the Bible and following Jesus.

At first it's like handling a guitar, you don't know how it works, you can't get much out of it, but you keep practicing. You keep reading the Bible. Over time you begin to see how it fits together, the stories resonate and come into focus (or in tune) with each other. So like learning an instrument, you begin to be able to hear a coherent music, a certain song develops. As you continue to work and practice hearing the song, the voice of Jesus lifts above the tune and you begin to realize you are holding in your hands a thing that is calling you, as your abilities grow, to sing this song for others. Over time your skill and joy increase as you practice living and participating in the ongoing creation of the Song of God.

But there was no instant gratification. You had to go through something. Had to deeply invest yourself even though you thought you'd never be able to get a single sweet chord from that guitar. Your fingers got sore and maybe bled on the steel strings. Now you can make it sing, now you can make your own contribution to the Music. And others will sing along in the mighty chorus.

May we commit to deeply investing over long years in the practice of reading the words and living out the call of Jesus! That's life-making and life-giving!

Tolkien and the power of Creativity

"The Christian still has to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now percieve that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know."
J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairie Stories

Verlyn Flieger in her book Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World goes on to say this:

"Both Tolkien and Barfield regarded the Word as the instrument of Creation and words as instruments of humanity's separation from God and from the universe...Both felt that the task of the poet was to bridge that separation, to use words to reconnect what they had severed. For each of them, words were to be poetic instruments of humankind's ultimate and conscious reunion with God." And again, "Poetry reinvests the world with meaning and rebuilds relationship with it." (pg 47-48)

In Tolkien's essay, these thoughts occur after his explanation that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, that the Gospel itself is the ultimate case of a true myth. And that myth defines reality, calling us back to a time when the same God who called a dead messiah from a dark grave into the light of Easter morning, also spoke this creation into existence with the words, "Let there be light".

Could it be that God has always used something more akin to myth, poetry, song, and story to bring into realization his creation? For us, these things are considered the less concrete forms of expression. What if for God they are the most substantial means. What if the old stories of the Bible that sound so mythic are closer to reality than any literal language we could conjur? In other words, what if myth is actually more literal?

And finally, what if imagination and creativity are the doors through which we bring into reality a love so fantastic that it sounds like a fairy tale?

The God who loves bad ideas

About three years ago my beardly buddy William Parks gave me a book called "Dove" by Robin Lee Graham. He told me that it helped change his life. I put that book on my shelf and forgot about it. Occasionally, I would glance over toward it and think, "I should read that someday". But I didn't, till now. I just read the first chapter and I'm already excited enough to write a blog as I begin. I've also already called William to thank him for the book. It may be God's magic timing for me.

In the first chapter, after Lee, the main character, and his two buddies nearly get killed in a squall while attempting to sail from Hawaii to Lanai in a rigged up lifeboat - his Dad, instead of telling his son to never get in a boat again, decides to buy his son a better boat! Amazing. His Dad encourages his boy to sail again after he had just returned from a nearly fatal adventure.

I did not grow up this way. I was always told to do the safe, smart, secure thing.

Bob Goff twittered today: @bobgoff: I used to be afraid of failing at the things that matter to me; now I'm more afraid of succeeding at the things that don't matter.

When I called William to tell him I was reading "Dove". He said, "That book came to me at a time when I thought my life was worthless, so I had resigned myself to simply pursue things that didn't really matter. I thought that was all I could do, I thought that was all I was worth."

Imagine a Heavenly Father who looks at our crazy attempts to live, our failures, our ridiculous ideas and says, "That's exciting, hoist the sails! Onward into the imprudent!" Would that surprise you? It seems kind of unbelievable to me. So now Lee's dad has bought a better boat for his sixteen year old son and they are fixing it up together. Secretly, Lee is dreaming that he will use this boat to sail around the world by himself. He doesn't want to break the news to his Dad, because he's sure his Dad will think it's a terrible idea and try to stop him. Eventually, he spills the beans. Here are the few lines that slapped me in the face like a salty sea spray:

"Surprisingly, my father barely reacted when I put the idea to him. We were now working ten hours a day on preparing the Dove for the ocean. I did not realize at the time that secretly my father had been hoping I would come up with just such a scheme..."

Immediately, I thought, "God is always quietly hoping that we will come up with crazy schemes to light up the world with real life that only comes through ridiculous trust in him." We're always so afraid to admit that we want more life, or to do anything about it, God is just aching for us to give it a shot. And if we follow his example, we're bound to come up with terrible ideas. I'm learning those may be the best kind.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom..." 1 Cor 1:25

I see you but I don't know where you are...

Or "I hear you but I don't know what you mean" or "I'm here but I don't know where I am". It's really frustrating to be in a context and not be aware of that context. Have you ever had someone angry at you and you don't know why? Have you ever felt like their expectations were unfair? Have you ever been in an awkward situation and you simply didn't know how to respond wisely?

"No expectation is valid unless it is communicated and agreed upon by both parties." That's become a favorite quote when it comes to understanding how to function in relationship with people. You can't read people's minds and they can't read yours. We have to orient people toward a context and communicate expectations. Only then can we understand how to function in a given situation/relationship.

I'm a worship leader and I enjoy it. I'm also a singer/songwriter and storyteller. I am passionate about these things. I'm passionate about creating and communicating in order to feed relationship between God and people.

Last October my friend Brian Mulder and I took a month off and traveled all around the Eastern half of the United States sharing songs and stories. Mostly in people's living rooms. We discovered that, if we were to do that in a thoughtful way to serve people, we would have to give some sort of 'orientation' talk at the outset of each concert. People just needed to understand what they were in for. They needed to have the context communicated in order to understand how to function and respond and participate.

Most folks had never experienced a house concert before and simply didn't know what to do with it. Each time we explained what was happening, Brian and I could feel a sense of relief and 'getting it' breeze across the place. The context was clear, the expectations had been communicated and everyone was at ease because they knew how to participate. Fascinating.

We need a context wherein expectations have been made known and the parameters of participation have been defined. This is always the case in relationships. It's actually a huge relief to be here and know where you are, to hear you and know what you mean, to see you and know where you are. It's a way to serve each other, to be considerate. It takes honesty, effort, and humility.

For me at the moment, I'm thinking of how can I create a clear 'orientation' or 'mission' statement for the work that I do. I want people to easily understand my work and be freed to participate.

This may be a strange question, but would you leave a comment about what you 'got out of' a concert or worship time with me? What did you perceive was 'happening' during that time? What did it feel like was the purpose? That may help me see my calling externally and be able to articulate better a kind of missional statement. Thanks!

Any other thoughts?

Getting a grip on 'glory'

I'm doing some research on the word 'glory'. I'm curious what ideas, images, stories, or words, are associated with 'glory' for you. What comes to mind? Anything will do even if it's just a single word.

Will you leave a comment with your reply? Will you pass around this request?

Thanks!

It's a twister! and that's a beautiful thing.

There two, now three, now thirty dry leaves
persuaded (or pursued) from the winter ground
by the rushing rumor of Spring.

Up and round like a dizzied child
a force of nature, a dervish wild.

I waited, a benchwarmer, with book in hand
in relative calm till the turning leaves turned on me.
The hush grew rushed and the whisper howled
when the bated breath broke loose.

That wind shook the soot from the winter ember
broke through to the weak and eager heat,
and sparks were joined to the spiraling spiration.
My heart was relieved by the light-warmth.

---

That's a shot at a poem I'm trying to write about a little moment from today. I was at the park re-reading the end of a great book I've been in called "Gilead" by Marilynn Robinson. I read this paragraph:

"It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns into radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it has anything to do with fire, or light. That is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon, and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?"

While I was thinking about it I noticed some leaves spinning up into the air. A cyclone formed about twenty yards away and I watched it, able to see the shape of the wind outlined by the debris. It was quiet where I sat, but the cyclone moved toward me and passed "through me" for a few seconds.

It was striking. The twining wind roared for just a moment and then passed. It felt like words of blessing, some kind of whirling baptism.

And it was in such a perfect context, having just read that paragraph from Gilead. I needed that grace today. I needed that respite. Beauty is never just beauty, it always carries the loving intention of our God.

the Accumulation of Calling

This past weekend, I was walking in the sea-wind on the Mississippi gulf coast with a good old friend who is a pastor down there. Somehow she and I began talking about 'calling'. This has always been a very ambiguous word for me and even a very frustrating thing to confront. I grew up thinking that you were supposed to have this absolute, kind of soul-piercing transcendent vocalization of the meaning of your life before you would be able to begin living it. There comes a point when that expectation either crushes you or breaks itself. These days I'm seeing calling has a cumulative quality. Kind of like relationship.

It's when I look back that it becomes more clear to me that God has been framing a context for how I participate with Him in His life now. There have been soul-shaping holy whispers along the way. The relationship with Jesus has changed as I've gradually learned what's important to God. Within the framework of exposure to God's life and work my desires adjusted in focus and my gifts have been developing. At this point, I am just beginning to stand back and observe that all this is going somewhere, that there is an intentional movement.

It's a very personal thing. I believe there is a general calling and mission that is shared by all who follow Jesus (and all who don't). We all are called in Christ to carry on his mission and work. Though that work is specific, how we flesh it out as real particular people often ends up volitionally vague. It's a creative opportunity though, relationship is. And though I have a general sense of the purpose of relationship, I sometimes have no idea what the heck I'm doing with it in any definitive way.

In the end, God is bringing his mission to life in me. Not through a singular explosive communication, but through familial attentive communion. I feel my gifts ripening and making sense and even reaching out into new possibilities. I see love among friends growing into new Kingdom Contexts. I am amazed to discover faith growing as the Father speaks the strength of his love against the sin that is "ever before me". The Story of Scripture, the very life of God, continues to give me a location in existence - a heritage (I came from somewhere) and an inheritance (I'm going somewhere). That means I have a place in God's life and work right now in the Present.

Calling then, has to do with Communion, with the accumulation of relationship with Jesus, with the ongoing maintenance of attachment through the Holy Spirit, and the faithful care and invitation of the Father to live as a member of his household.

ps. Please comment and share your experience of finding a place in God's life/story.

Thanks Wendell, I keep forgetting

How to be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

--------------

ps. Thanks Kristen Sayres. I scooped this up off your old blog.
pps. Now I will close this laptop, lay on the ground in the sun and read a book in my friend's backyard in Memphis, TN. Amen.

Reproach, Approach, Reconciliation

When the Israelites finally entered the promised land God said he was 'removing the reproach of Egypt from them'. (Joshua 5:9-12) Here are some definitions of reproach (which is related to reprobate):

reproach (n.)
c.1420, from O.Fr. reproche (12c.), from reprocher "to blame, bring up against," said by some Fr. etymologists to be from V.L. *repropiare, from L. re- "opposite of" + prope "near." But others suggest *reprobicare, from L. reprobus/reprobare (see reprobate). The verb is attested from c.1489.

reprobate (adj.)
1540s, "rejected as worthless," from L.L. reprobatus, pp. of reprobare "disapprove, reject, condemn," from L. re- "opposite of, reversal of previous condition" + probare "prove to be worthy" (see probate). The noun is recorded from 1540s, "one rejected by God." Sense of "abandoned or unprincipled person" is from 1590s. Earliest form of the word in English was a verb, meaning "to disapprove" (early 15c.).

This word has a sense of a lack of relational proximity, of being unwanted, blamed, undesired, worthless. The Israelites were a people who were not wanted or valued. As they enter the promised land God removes that reproach. Have you ever thought about what it would feel like to hear this from God? It's like he's saying to them, "No one wanted you and everyone thought Egypt was so fantastic, right? I am the real God, think about it, who am I with? You or Egypt? I love you Israel."

Then in the New Testament 2 Cor 5:16-21 we are told we have been reconciled to God through Christ and are now given the message of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a neat word. Check this out. Reconcile comes from conciliate which comes from council. Check out the etymology of council:

council
early 12c., from Anglo-Norm. cuncile, from O.N.Fr. concilie, from L. concilium "group of people, meeting," from com- "together" + calare "to call". Tendency to confuse it in form and meaning with counsel has been consistent since 16c.

So reconcile has in it a sense of having been 'called' out of separation and into attachment. There's an element of proclamation. The people of God were an unloved, unwanted, people of reproach in Egypt. But there has been a proclamation of reconciliation. God wants relational proximity, loving nearness. Watch this: instead of reproach we have approach. God removes reproach with his own approach and call of reconciliation. You are loved, wanted. Didn't he prove his love? When did he die for us? While we were sinners, slaves, unwanted, unloved, under reproach. That is when he approached us and called us together in attachment to himself.

Now we call out on his behalf to those who live under reproach. Now we approach them. We call them to gather with us with the true God who does want them to be near him through Jesus' loving work- his own death for reprobates.

ps. Want to know what the cooooooolest site ever is? www.etymonline.com
pps. Yes, I'm a word-dork.

Going to Church

Today I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. There were only five people there including me. Only one person had a guitar and there were no song sheets or projected slides or anything. And we only sang two songs. There was no preacher, we just read 1 Cor 2 aloud about how the Holy Spirit brings to our minds the very mind of Jesus Christ. We talked about it for a few minutes. We noticed that things that had seemed stupid and worthless in the past had actually become very precious to us and we remarked at how good and wise the foolishness of God really is. Then we told each other what we were worried about and everybody prayed for everybody else. Then we ate some food together.

I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. I didn't even know I was going to go to church when I woke up today. Neither did any of the other four people who were there. We didn't have time to print bulletins or plan an order of worship. We didn't take up an offering. But we did take care of each other.

I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. In Abbye and Jeff's living room. I sat on the couch I'd slept on the night before with two old friends beside me.

I really like going to church. I like going on Sunday morning in the building north of town. But that's not enough... and here's the point... it's not supposed to be enough. Sunday morning is supposed to be insufficient.

"We loved you so much that we gave you not only God's Good News but our very lives as well."
1 Thessalonians 2:8

In the Studio...

...with Brian Mulder who is rocking my face off with an epic electric guitar part. We're working on the title track of Brian's new CD "Somewhere we're shining". We've been working all week since Brian and his brother Rob drove down from Holland, MI to visit and finish up some recording some tracks.

Here's a video.

Brian, Rob, and Matthew Recording from Brian Mulder on Vimeo.

Escapism vs. Baptism

I went on a great retreat a couple weekends ago with D. Merricks and the Ole Miss Wesley Foundation and the Arkansas Wesley around Little Rock. J.D. Walt was the retreat pastor and speaker. J.D.'s theme was "there are only two stories". Which is the theme of the Lenten/Spring Reader from Asbury Seminary this year. ( http://blogs.asburyseminary.edu/asbury-reader/start-here/ )

We are always trying to work our way UP, considering 'equality with God something to be grasped' but Jesus works his way DOWN to us 'not considering equality with God something to be grasped'. Those are the two stories and we live in one or the other, with either the mind of fallen Adam, or the mind of Christ.

Today though I've been thinking about Escapism vs. Baptism.

What's the difference? What kind of life do they bring respectively?

For myself, I'm seeing more and more that I want to preserve my controlled, familiar world and neglect dying to my self-preserving desires. I'd rather look out the window than be outside. (An example, actually, I had a great day out in the sun today.) It's easy then to end up with a fabricated pseudo-life wherein all the sensations of a real living committed movement and story are available without any of the actual attachments.

Entertainment can become escapism. I can get the feelings of adventure without the risks. I can save my life, but really I'm losing my life to meaninglessness and immobility.

I want to be Baptized. I want something real to happen to me. I want the legitimate hunger to be alive to be fed with the legitimate means of an actual life.

Even Jesus wanted to be baptized. And right after he was baptized he was tempted in the desert with the availability of escape from the pain and difficulty of real living. But he chose to walk forward in his baptism. Every day a baptism. And the result was life realized, good choices with actual meaning, living redemption.

What do you think about the comparison of Escapism vs. Baptism? What do you see?

Reminder...

Just remembering today that this whole "God loves us" thing is something we can bank on. It was all his idea in the first place. He took the initiative, he made the move, it was his idea. We didn't talk him into it, we didn't come up with some appeal and he bought into it.

Jesus isn't a God who has to be persuaded to love us or care about us. We don't have to win him over.

He's already there. He started this.

We don't have to use magic words to coax him into attentiveness when we pray, we don't have to try to manipulate him with religious procedure. If he didn't love us we would. And if he could be bought or bribed maybe those things would be worth the effort. But we don't have to bribe him or control him.

All the insecurity we feel about his love just isn't true.

Poop vs Parties

Today I read in James Ch. 2. I was really struck by it in a different sense than I have been before. I was reading it out loud and slowly which helps me. I was trying to follow the train of thought. Before I have always thought James was just sort of 'getting onto' the people, but today I felt like he was pleading or begging them to stop settling for some dead pseudo-faith. To stop fooling themselves and break through to really being alive. Like they were missing the very best part of believing in the life Jesus offers, they were missing the actual living of that life. Their belief needed to be activated. They had all the right ideas but nothing was putting on flesh. The truths were remaining abstractions and never passing into realization.

James is excited about how much he loves to be alive and he sees people missing out on it and he is desperate to bring them into the joy he knows comes with real living.

I'm trying to think of a good illustration for it. Maybe you say you like to ride roller coasters but you never have actually ridden on one. You can talk about what it would be like, you can watch movies about it and you'll have all the information and 'truth' about it, but you wont really know the joy of it till you drive to an amusement park and buy a ticket, wait in line, sit in that seat, buckle in, slowly clink up the first incline, then fly through the track and scream together with the crowd and feel that wind.

I can talk about loving people, I can quote all the verses, I can explain the truths, I can send a check in to someone I've never met to clear my conscience, but I want more than a life of abstraction. I want a life of real contact and joy. That's what I'm feeling from James ch. 1 & 2. It's so funny how things can change. I've always felt like James was a party pooper. Actually, he's trying to start the party for the poopers.

Negation vs. Creation

I've been thinking a lot lately about creativity. One idea showing up repeatedly is "negation vs creation". I'm thinking about how I usually notice or point out something that's wrong and end there. But God comes at a different angle by creating something to occupy that empty space and presenting that good thing which then shows the emptiness but provides an alternative good way to live.

One illustration might be the parable of the demon possessed 'house' that is emptied, swept clean, but not filled. So when the demons return after wandering, they find the house clean but unoccupied. So they just go right back in and fill the space. There had only been negation and no creation.

Another illustration is the woman at the well in John 4. Her value has been negated by herself and her community. A real void has been put in place (the people literally aVOID her). And Jesus, when he shows up is doing the opposite of avoiding. And the first thing he does is begin by asked for her to help him. "Will you give me a drink of water?" He creatively chooses how he will interact with her and the way he does it is to give her the dignity of asking for her assistance. This woman who feels like she has nothing to offer is told by Jesus that she does have something to offer. And her need is legitimate (thirst) but the means she's been using to meet it (promiscuity) weren't legitimate (ie she's been drinking 'water' but not living water). The people of the village had only negated the situation, but Jesus speaks with relational creativity into the void of this woman's life and a new way of living is available to her.

With our gifts we get to not simply negate but creatively add to the world with the beauty and love and goodness of God's life and story through Jesus. We can make things, say things, do things, choose things, and be creative in an endless number of ways to incarnate incessantly the love of God. We get to throw sparks into the darkness, we get to step into the empty, formless void of the lives around us and, with God, create something to fill that negated space.

A major realization of late has been that loving people well is not like a machine to be figured out, or an argument to be won. Love is not a mechanism that just needs to be fixed, or have the right buttons pushed to get the desired functional result. Love and relationship are creative endeavors. We are in the context of shaping clay, of writing poems, living good stories, or tending a garden. That's closer to the reality of relationship. And it's an exciting reality full of possibility, responsibility, wonder, and (honestly) fun!

It's brought a simple enjoyment back into relationships to think of them not as dreary mechanisms, but as vibrant creative opportunities. Each one is unique and full of eternal potential, like a poem yet to be expressed, or a lump of clay waiting to be lovingly sculpted. And like any work of art, a central purpose is that it would transfer what is in the artist's heart into the heart of those who encounter that work of art. So in every relationship we can craft a thing that carries in it the love of God and our love in a way that adds light and beauty and right-ness to the emptiness around us. This is what our entire lives can consist of.

By handing over his mission, Jesus has instilled dignity by entrusting us with a partnership in his call to speak creatively into the void and let the word become incarnate and available to a world in need. We are a part of it now. We can make creative and life-giving choices in Christ. So the world can find out that love matters, that Jesus has changed everything.

Hebrews and Haiti

I saw a link on Donald Miller's twitter the other day that took me to the site of a journalist reporting from Haiti. It was horrific. The photos were amazing but so sad. It's an incredible situation and in many ways I feel so helpless. But I found another site of a group called "Flourish". Here's the Link:

http://flourishonline.org/2010/01/the-real-truth-about-haiti-and-what-your-church-can-do-now-and-in-the-future/

They had posted an interesting summary of the economic history of Haiti. Haiti has always had a tough go at it. Systems of oppression in place as they began their life as a republic set a strong and negative precedent for the people today.

Flourish also listed some good advice on how to participate in the relief work wisely. Check out those links and see what you can do.

One of the stories I read from the reporter I mentioned earlier stunned me. He spoke of the people grieving deeply. He spoke of how with every tremor and aftershock he would hear frightened screams in the night. Yet there was another sound that struck him as he listened awake on his bed in the heavy darkness: the sound of the people singing through the night.

I finished reading Hebrews today and wrote a song. There's a song from Haiti that I haven't quite been able to get a hold on, but this is one from the closing chapters of Hebrews. I hope if I were covered in the dust of shattered buildings lying in the dark trembling with the trembling earth itself, I hope I could sing still in faith about the things I cannot see that I long for. - Matthew



Faith is the confidence that hope in the Lord never fails
Sight never sees far, be assured that his promise prevails
Many came before and still they await his return
We know his voice, and the family of Jesus stands firm

CHORUS:
Sing the song of the faithful ones
Who carry on with the work of God:
This world never will be our home
Hold on until he comes

Let us strip off the sin that would stand in our way
Set before us is the race that will end when he says
Well done my good and faithful beloved of God
you who bore the cross now take up your life

A New Year

I'm always excited when a new year rolls around. I like to look back over the last year and think of all the things that happened that I had had no idea would happen- good or bad. There is always much to take in. At the beginning of last January, I had no idea of the people I would meet or the amazing relationships that would begin, the places I would travel including some of Europe, or the fun I would have touring with Brian Mulder all of October. And those are just the bigger things. Life is full of possibilities. I have no idea what the coming year holds.

So here I am at the beginning of an unknown territory again. I'm realizing that the last year was just as unknown to me twelve months ago. I'm realizing that I'm okay twelve months later. That plenty was frustrating or sad but the things that I remember the most are the good things I didn't see coming. I'm looking forward to living more deeply into the mysterious story. I'm also excited to think that God invites us to creatively contribute to His Story with our decisions, creations, conversations, relationships... with our whole lives.

This week I'm working to finish up a CD project that my dear friend Katie Heckel has been working on. She's very passionate about orphans in Africa. A couple of years ago she traveled to Ghana and lived for several weeks in the story of the children of poverty and oppression there. She wrote songs about it, she came back and told stories about it, and now she's going back to Africa to keep telling the story. We're finishing the CD of those Africa songs. All the money will go directly to the orphanage in Ghana where Katie has built a sweet and sacred relationship.

This coming weekend, another songwriter friend, Becca Varner will be coming to town to record some songs for an acoustic album of her own. And Brian Mulder has an album in the works that we hope to finish sometime this Spring before he goes on Blood:Water Mission's Ride:Well Tour in June. Brian will be biking about 3,000 miles across the Unites States to raise money to build wells in Africa.

I'm hoping to find a way to get to Africa myself this Summer. I'd like to go collect some stories and love some people. We'll see. I am amazed though at the endless ways to be involved in God's Great Living Gospel Story. We can really dig down into our imaginations and creatively dream up ways to participate with Jesus in his ongoing mission to save the world through his ingenious love.

In this New Year, be encouraged to jump into the call to create alongside Jesus and add beauty to the world. It's a sad mistake to think that the way of heaven is monotonous or boring. Remember the single lidless eye of the sinister Sauron in Lord of the Rings? It's evil that has just one boring unblinking view of the world. It is the vast vision of God that has spoken into existence all the vibrant variety of this universe. I want to be in on that and at work with Jesus.

-Matthew