Dirty Confessions

Well, it’s gettin’ on Lent. That means good Christians everywhere are making plans to feel bad.

A friendly reminder for your upcoming 40 days: confession is about facing a life of forgiveness, not one of grieving the past.

Psalm 51 is the classic prayer of confession: Make me new. Restore my life. It’s really a deep trust in a simple principle of the universe: things change. 

Lord knows David had some baggage, so when we utter Psalm 51 together we know we’re in good sinner/saint company. (Is my Lutheran showing?) I don’t know a soul who doesn’t desire renewal in their life in an honest, continual way.

This 3000 year old text has been spun into the liturgy for a loooong time. We pray together:

Create in me a brand new heart,
       forgiven and renewed
Restore to me your spirit now
       and the joy of your rescue

May you and your circle experience true renewal this Lent.

Listen to Richard’s community song “Wash Me Clean” for Psalm 51. It’s a little groovy, but don’t worry– if you feel bad about feeling good after, read the Psalm again.

To Give Yourself

When our ten-year-old son comes to ask me to play, I am sometimes more willing than others.

To be honest, sometimes I agree with an inward sigh because I want to be a good dad and putting in my time is important.

Other times, I fully give myself to Sam with a wide-open heart smile.

I give myself.

I let go of my agenda and allow myself to swept away. I’m clearly not in control and into it, whether it’s dominos, chess, a light saber duel or freestyle wrestling. Whatever the play, I am so There. I will not be a spectator this time. I will not be juggling the thoughts of my little projects. I am in it for a real encounter with my beloved boy, not to check a box when the task is done. Not this time.

There are two ways to approach the spiritual life:

1. Disciplined and goal-driven.

2. Mystical and Experientially-driven.

Neither is wrong. They are two sides of an important coin. However, I think the first mode is what our consumer society imposes, so the latter is more deeply needed in this time.

In the first case, our ambition and desire motivate change. Through discipline, we take the wheel with some measure of assurance that we have what we need to navigate the watercourses of our lives. The positive is that we draw from the strength of our personhood. In this current season of Lent, there are disciplines that may shape the design of a faith-full life. It’s good. Spiritual practice can show us it’s possible to live consciously, intentionally.

The downside of this perspective is that the sense of responsibility for one’s life makes us prone to feel either pain in failure or pride in success. Grace and mystery are kind of bottom shelf.

In the second mode, we are immersed in Great Mystery and, like a daddy with his kid, we give ourselves to It. We are All In. As one theologian puts it, God is shaping us “like water shapes a rock.”

Like a bride to her bridegroom, a mama nursing her baby, a passionate student to her studies, we give ourselves.

The downside is that mystics may be so good at opening, allowing and surrendering, that we neglect agency. (Talk to Neo about that.) Martin Luther wrote that even the will to make the tiniest choice originates from God’s Holy Spirit.

But in every spiritual tradition I can think of, there’s a dimension of surrender where we put ourselves in the flow of something we trust is bigger than ourselves and watch ourselves be part of it.

In Lent, I suggest there is more to give ourselves to than be in charge of. as we hear the stories of Jesus and soak in the Psalms, we might open our imaginations to what transformation looks like in us. There might be some work to do, but maybe most of it is allowing stuff to happen to us. One could make a case that the whole of Jesus’ ministry was about these two words: “Give yourself.” Give yourself to me and share abundant life. Give yourself away to one another and discover a large, round filled-to-overflowing life. You are seasoning for the earth and light for the planet, after all.

It’s human to want to give ourselves. We desire to see our existence expand past our perceived personal borders. A rich life means losing track of our individuality sometimes to know ourselves large, as Uncle Walt wrote.

Rumi:
“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
‘You owe me.’
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.”

What this means is that giving yourself is a spiritual practice. When we do it, we are magnetically drawn to Fullness and Goodness and Holy.

So we give ourselves to our kids and to our parents. We give ourselves to our neighbors, to our community, to our leaders because we witness life being more full.

We give ourselves to strangers, to the poor, to the widow, because that’s where we are most certainly present.

We give ourselves to the Samaritan, to the Muslim, to the bullied because we get clear on who we are.

We offer ourselves gift-wrapped to our unique and sometimes hard-to-explain callings.

When you eat, be mindful and completely savor. When you make love, be totally There. In fact, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Holiness.

Teachers, give yourself to your students. Nurses, give yourselves to your patients. Dentists, serve as unto the Holy One.

If you fish, consider yourself a fisher of humanity. Surrender to fishing, to the lake, to the fish. Make yourself part of the circle of life. Your life will lure the Holy, your fish will feed the world. Your heart, so present.

Like a gardener, full of hope and trust, plant seeds. Your nests will gather immigrants and strangers into Love.

We are up for anything the spirit of the Living God puts in our way today. We may set aside our preferences in order to serve. We may set aside our theological commitments to say yes to stretching and growing. We offer ourselves as students, disciples–  teachable, shapeable ones.

To One we lay ourselves open to service, open to healing, open to surprise and to an ever-emerging future.

New Year’s, The Point of the Church, and Johnny Depp

Woot! Free song below!

After the Twelve Days of Christmas is Epiphany. It kicks off the most important season of the church year– better than Christmas, stronger than Easter, able to leap Pentecost in a single liturgical bound.

At this point in the post, I pause for a number of you to scoot to the edge of your seat in fascination, and the rest to politely excuse yourselves to do anything else you can think of.

Bob Webber called Advent-Christmas-Epiphany “The Cycle of Light,” (unrelated to Tron). If Advent is about longing and preparing for Christ’s presence, Christmas about rejoicing in the eternal breakthrough of God-With-Us, then Epiphany is about manifesting the Christ.

Which, in my humbly-justified, sinner-saintly opinion, is the Point of the church.

It’s too bad only 11 percent of church-goers know what Epiphany is about. (Okay, I actually made that stat up. But shocking, right?)

The church exists to reveal, proclaim and embody the Christ. If that seems like a funky new theology, note that the New Testament people of God are collectively called the Body of Christ (Romans 12; I Corinthians 12). That’s a metaphor for the physical manifestation of presence.

It’s the Incarnation kicked up a notch.

We hear some strong stories in the Epiphany season, among them:

• The Magi pilgrimage with gifts: devotion made manifest.

• Isaiah 60: “Arise, shine! Your light has come… and nations shall come to your light.” We occupy with our lives what’s otherwise 99% invisible.

• Jesus is baptized by his cousin John, J’s anointing revealed publicly. (The Baptizer played by Johnny Depp.)

• At the Cana wedding party J does water to wine, saying something about “his time” coming, the first of seven signs of transformation in John.

• J calls and trains the disciples– gathering, equipping, sending.

• The Transfiguration. Glory in the ordinary leaves us sputtering in awe.

To me, all these stories are images of transformation, inviting us to imagine what’s possible in a life. What a great way to begin a new calendar year.

In these Epiphany stories, we get that God is up to something brilliantly earthy and mystically intuitive: Christ is to be found in the ordinary, even enacted in you and me with all our uniqueness, embodied in us together.

Look up “Christ, Body of” in the dictionary, and you see a family picture of all of us (that’s all) with J. Our Celtic brothers and sisters would not leave out the earth itself, insisting we honor God ‘s presence in all of creation.

Of course, there are other ways to put it:

• My conservative Christian friends speak in terms of evangelism, proclaiming God’s love to all the world. Yes, that’s it.

• For my liberal Christian friends it’s the call to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, making a difference in creation. Absolutely.

• My Buddhist friends work with radical compassion, recognizing that everything is impermanent– the world can change, and we can be part of it. Amen and gassho to that.

• My New Age friends speak about manifesting divinity in our lives. Sure, that’s it, too.

• My Muslim friend is clear about his call to serve the world, enriching human fitrah.

• I don’t have any close Jewish friends these days, but I am thinking how beautifully Hebrew Covenant is embodied in family, politics, religion, meal, prayer, story and song. Yes!

• My pagan friends are committed to actively honoring the holy in each and every piece of creation.

• For my atheist-leaning friends, there’s transcendent purpose in doing good on behalf of ourselves and the world.

• Mr. Rogers taught me it’s good to share who you are and what you have. Our eleven-year-old knows it.

As the New Year turns, we take stock of last year and let it go. Then we turn, taking a deep breath with some hope and some trembling as we face another year. Our call as humanity has never been clearer: we are important to one another. We are designed– mind, body, soul and strength– to be of influence and to work/play together to be of even greater influence. This is the metaphoric Light of Isaiah and of the gospels. Didn’t J say, “I am the light of the world” but also, “You are the light of the world.”

In Epiphany, this is a moment to celebrate this is how the universe works. We might also meditate on the poignancy of just how connected we all are.

How might this Epiphany be a time of renewal for your local church? Time to celebrate your light that naturally shines, to consider how you are embodying the Christ, and how God is leading you more deeply in and in some cases farther out.

Here’s a short but juicy song for you and your community this Epiphany: “Your Light Has Come” crystallized from a great discussion with Marcia McFee‘s Worship Design Studio a couple of years ago.

The lyrics reflect a post-modern paraphrase of Isaiah 60:

Lift your head, raise your eyes, look around:
       Your light has come! your light has come!
Light the world, heal the earth, bear the Christ:
       Your light has come! your light has come!

Here’s to the New Year with a Eucharistic toast all together.

Download Your Light Has Come mp3 and piano score from Worldmaking.net. Just follow the golden arrow now.

When Your Theology Changes

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Carl Jung wrote that a Circle is an archetype for wholeness or God. We are always drawn toward it, June Singer said, yet “to fly straight into it would be like a moth darting into a flame.”

I guess, like Moses, we don’t look directly at the Holy. We circle around. We admire its posterior, its profile, its moving shadow.

At seminary I heard all theology is autobiography. True, I think. If we’re paying attention, all our life experiences are naturally integrated into a Story of what’s holding them together. We come up with integral symbols, signs and words that help us make sense of it all: theology. God-talk. The witness of Scripture is that. We’re designed to do that, too.

We are God-seeking, tower-circling, hungry-by-design, circumnavigating-Life-by-instinct creatures.

You’re a falcon circling.
When Rilke describes circling around the Tower, it’s what all of us are always doing.

Whatever language and symbols you have going right now for the Holy One, it hasn’t always been this way. Your autobiography has grown with your years on the planet, and your theology has developed with you. Each time you’ve crystalized a personal belief, it’s been merely a stepping stone of long-haul enlightenment.

In other words, your theology has evolved.

You’re a storm circling.
Like a scientist in the lab, when something interesting happens, our definitions are disrupted and our Story of God grows beyond its previous borders. Bill Moyers’ Genesis: A Living Conversation project suggested the narrative of the Older Testament is really the Story of God evolving in the human experience. Your story is a kind of scripture, too. Everyone’s is.

We know change happens, yet when seasons of transformation dawn, we pretend to be surprised. As if life is supposed to be stagnant and smooth, and moments of transition are really messing it all up. Humans are funny.

Pete Seeger said we can’t know the whole Truth. We can only circle round the gorse-berry bush hearing the rabbit, pointing and saying, “It’s in there somewhere.” Observe a sculpture with three trusted friends at the compass points, and you have access to four different views, all true, all different. The community, friends, church, sanga, is a vital thing in your God-Story evolving.

Paul Tillich said the word “God” is so old and tired, it should be banished from our vocabulary for about a thousand years. Then that word might begin to mean something again. We outgrow language sometimes.

When you come to a place where old words don’t work anymore, tell someone. Because that’s the Christ story unfolding: death and resurrection, and old wineskins breaking. When a season of questioning moves through, share that story of Christ emerging. Don’t circle alone, at least not for long. Your story– everyone’s story– is something we need to hear. I’ve been part of some communities over the years where seasons of deep questioning are avoided as a failure of faith. I’ve been part of others that treat these seasons as holy moments where faith is growing. I hope you have a sense of being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses where your Story of God is welcomed, honored and treated as revelation. After all, didn’t he say something about being born again? And again?

You’re a song circling.
Who are you? After a thousand years, maybe we can say with Rilke, “I still don’t know.” Maybe the point of a creative, juicy life is to lose track of ourselves and know ourselves to be In Holy Process. We think we know what the point is; we think it’s all about the tower. But what about the circumnavigated path you’ve worn? Your favorite beverage on the journey? The weather lo these many years of orbiting? The company and the conversations? These are all parts of a spiritual life. The experiences of a true Christ life cannot always be neatly filed.

To conclude, let’s stretch the metaphor with Rilke:

You are circling ’round the One Holy Tower– a falcon, a storm, a song.

You’re a lover dancing round your Beloved.

You’re a storyteller wondering about the twist at the end,
a hawk patrolling her valley,
a youngster on the playground with one end of the  jumprope, whirling, whirling with your friend.

You’re an explorer of God downloading continuously to a universal core.

When your theology is changing, you are in the midst of a Holy Endeavor.

Swearing at Shrubbery with Jesus

One hot Friday afternoon, Trish was working outside and sent Sam to get me. I found her in hostas up to her cute little whatsis, so we made dividing and transplanting them a marriage-building activity.

That job finished, we sat sweaty. And we looked. And we saw the broken arbor along the side of the house that makes us feel like white trash. We saw the tangled convolution of vines that has been choking the whole south side of the house for years, several trees with it. We looked at each other with a mutual Clint Eastwood scowl of great purpose.

We got up. We cut into the vines. We tore them from the house and the trees. We sawed and dug and yanked and pulled like lives were at stake.

We both had stuff on our minds.

I could pretend to be embarrassed at this, but I’m really not: I yelled at that vine. I called it bad names as I sought to free the trees from its stranglehold. I summoned wrath for that vine as if it had a will. I growled at it as if it had an intelligence making it mean. I could be overheard by the neighborhood birds growling under my breath, “Let go of her, you f#@!ing bastard.”

[Insert pause for those who know me to catch their breath.]

A holy moment, don’t you think?

Some of Jesus’ most powerful moments in the gospels involve cursing.

There’s Jesus telling Peter, one of his best friends, to go to hell. (Usually read, “Get behind me, Satan.”) Man, that must have stung.

There’s the scene in where Jesus is casting “Woe” on the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, calling them snakes (opei gennhmata ecidnwn if you care), reminiscent of John the Baptizer’s rant (Luke 3.17) with echoes of the Pharisees’ accusation of Jesus of being in league with Beelzebub (Luke 12:34). Anyway, J was irate. He let them have it.

Then there’s my favorite: Jesus cursing the fig tree. The scene happens after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. (I don’t need to include the word “triumphal” here but honestly how often do you get a chance to use it?) In the story according to Mark, it happens right before Jesus goes postal in the temple. In Matthew‘s version, it’s right after. Either way, maybe he’s a little agitated. What happens is Jesus is hungry, finds a fig tree without figs and lashes out with a curse, “May no one eat your fruit again!” A few short verses later, sure enough, the thing is withered. It’s a tad embarrassing that the text goes out of its way to explain that figs were out of season. In the gospels, Rabbi J regains composure enough to use the moment to teach a little something about prayer. Nice recovery.

I call this gardening therapy. And it’s real cheap.

Most scholars connect this curious moment to the parable of the fig tree in Luke, where a man tells his gardener to dig up and destroy his three-years-barren, waste-of-soil fig tree. Bible commentaries point out that a thriving fig tree was a sign of blessing for Israel, and so days before his crucifixion, to curse said shrubbery indicates Jesus’ general non-good feelings about the whole thing. Kind of a performance art lament.

Personally, I choose to enjoy these cursing snapshots as faithful moments which resonate with the laments of the Psalms. Most of the Psalms are laments: faithful prayers in the midst of sadness, grieving, terror, and loneliness.

How much does it bother us to think of Jeshua as being cranky? Impolite at times? Unreasonable? Fully human?

To get in touch with the earthy side of Jesus, may I suggest reading the synoptic gospels? Just a bit at a time, with your imagination tuned to the drama, the characters, the landscape.

For some coyote medicine to poke your personal theology, you might enjoy your feathers ruffled by Monty Python’s classic film “Life of Brian” or Christopher Moore’s hilarious and irreverent novel, “Lamb.”

From out here, you cannot tell what’s blasphemy and what’s prayer. Yell at a bush with Jesus. You might feel better.

• Hear Richard’s song about the importance of doubt, ” Thomas.”