Blog changes

hey I changed blogs!

You can still go to www.matthewclark.net to see it, but if you signed up to get the RSS feed you need to sign up for the new blog to get updates.

click here: feed://matthewclark.posterous.com/rss.xml

I've got several new blogs up since July 6th which was the last one before I switched over.

thanks!

matthew

News: July 6th, 2011

I've been so busy the past several months and I've barely updated anything! But here's a quick rundown on the latest news:

1. Katie Heckel- Colors of Hope

We finished a new album for Katie before she headed off to Ghana, Africa for the next 15 months to live with orphans there at Rafiki Orphanage. I will be posting her new CD to Noisetrade.com soon so you can download it and leave a tip which will directly support her work there.

2. My wife and I are living in Memphis, TN for the Summer working at Service Over Self, which is an urban home repair camp. We work with youth groups from around the county who come to serve in forgotten neighborhoods like Binghampton. Repairing houses and sharing the Gospel in word and deed. I work in the kitchen and my wife Katie works in the office. We also get lots of opportunity to lead worship.

3. Matt King and I got started on a new album which will be completed this coming Fall.

4. We had a great time playing a backyard porch concert with Abbye and Jeff Pates here in Memphis. There's an community of Christians incarnating the Gospel with their very lives and we visited them with original songs. It was a beautiful evening! I'll post pictures on my facebook page soon.

5. My friends made pancakes and bacon for me this morning for a special birthday breakfast! Yep, today is my birthday, I'm 31 years old today. And I'm very excited to see what Jesus has in store in the years to come. More than ever, my heart's desire is to follow him.

There's a quick update from here. The Summer is super busy so I'll post when I can. Hope you're all having a great one too!

the Hebrew Heart

I was just searching randomly for the Hebrew idea of 'heart' a few minutes ago and ran across this:

"[The Hebrews] also saw the heart as the seat of thought whereas we see the brain as the seat of thought. To the ancient Hebrews the heart was the mind including all thoughts including emotions. When we are told to love God with all our heart (Deut 6:5) it is not speaking of an emotional love but to keep our emotions and all our thoughts working for him."

- Jeff Benner

The author goes on to describe the way the word is illustrated: with a shepherd's staff and the floor plan of a tent dwelling. The heart is the place where authority is exercised over those that dwell within it. The thoughts and emotions are shepherded and taught to submit to the person whose heart it is. Next the Scriptures command us to point that disciplined heart toward God and his service.

Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. We've been talking a lot about the Holy Spirit in church lately. Reading in Galatians Paul draws the contrast between the Law (which has only the power to punish) and the Spirit (who offers new power to actually change). Our hearts (our thoughts and emotions) are to be submitted to our own authority and then our own authority is to be submitted to God's ultimate authority. The Holy Spirit can give us the ability to do this.

Back in the Recording Studio!

So much has happened in the last year, it's unbelievable. I met a girl
and we got married (that's never ever happened to me). She's
incredibly fantastic and she likes me. She even likes spicy Indian
food as much as I do. We've been living in a construction zone for the
past couple of months as we make some improvements on the house. It's
still not finished, but at least the recording studio is back in one
piece.

I've got three projects that have been waiting for attention. Tonight
I'm working on Katie Heckel's next CD. She's leaving for Ghana, Africa
in May and will be gone for 15 months! This new CD will be sold to
raise support for her work there at Rafiki Orphanage. She'll be
stopping by Friday to lay down vocals.

Next, Matt King will be in the studio at the beginning of next week.
He's a killer songwriter and vocalist/guitarist. Then lastly I'd love
to finish up the collaborative worship album some friends and I
started in December. We got 13 songs pretty much recorded but not
mixed or fleshed out with final instrumentation.

I'm excited too because my wife, Katie, is a fantastic vocalist and
musician. So I'm looking forward to her help on these projects. I
better get back to work for now. These 3 CDs are supposed to be out
before June hits. Pray for us!

FCA Getaway

I'm in Jackson, MS at the moment leading worship for the weekend with
some good friends at the FCA Getaway Retreat. We're having a great
time goofing off, practicing the music, and getting to know each other
better. Matt King is a friend of mine who is a great worship leader
and songwriter. This is his gig and I'm tagging along on electric
guitar. That's especially fun for me since I don't get to play
electric in worship normally.

Of course, I forgot my guitar. My wife and I left the house, drove
down to visit my parents for a couple of days before heading to the
retreat. After driving two hours from home I realized that my guitar
was still in our living room feeling all sad and neglected. But Matt
King's friend Andrew brought his electric guitar even though he was
playing bass. So I was provided for. Also, Katie and I didn't know
till after we'd left that we needed sleeping bags and pillows for the
weekend. We thought of making another trip to borrow some but it turns
out at this camp in the middle of nowhere, MS we get put up in a cabin
with nice beds with sheets and pillows.

We're having a great time and the students are a blast. They are
singing and opening their hearts wide to respond to Jesus. We saw many
folks asking for help and making contact with the cross of Christ this
morning. Thankful to be here.

I now have a short window of opportunity to take a nap before dinner
and tonight's time of meeting in worship.

Songwriting Retreat: Beginning

I'm re-posting these blogs about our recent Songwriting Retreat from Abbye Pates' blog (http://www.thewaywewander.blogspot.com) She is a great songwriter and friend. I'm glad she kept a little log of our time together! Hope you enjoy these next 4-5 posts. - Matthew

What is a Songwriter's Retreat? Who put this together for you? Where are you going? And what are you doing again? (And why do you need a whole week to... write?)

These were some great questions we received in the weeks leading up to our getaway to the tippy-toes of the Appalachian Mountains. These questions led us into some great conversations about why we write songs, why it's good to write together and especially how this week would be much more than just writing. We would write, sing, record, and above all that, pray, listen, and worship together. We decided to stop settling for, "Wouldn't it be so great if we holed ourselves up in a cabin for a week and wrote songs?"

This time, we did it.

And over the next several days, you can step back into last week with us and catch a glimpse of what it was all about, living in the Bear Cub Cabin, cooking meals, singing songs, reading Scripture, and laughing at Matthew's ridiculous clapping routines.

We hope you'll share the journey with us!

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.