Posts Tagged ‘God’
Noah and the Other: A Hump Day Story
Here’s your Bible story for today.
Occupy Midweek
Once upon a time there was a man named Noah. He enjoyed a good conversation. He also had a sense of wanting to do the right thing as he walked upright through a strange time.
And he walked through a very strange time. Noah lived among superheroes, when the sons of god walked the earth, sexing the hot chicks (OK, the text says “they married,” but there is meat-market sense to it) and producing a super race. Men of renown. It’s all in the Bible—Genesis 6. But it was also a time of great violence. And Noah was the last man standing uncorrupted—so the story goes (except for the problem with new wine, a bit further in the story). But mostly Noah was blameless and faithful as he did the right thing. Noah’s way of living had something to do with the conversations he had.
Noah had cultivated a sensitivity unlike anyone else: he was conversant with the Being that created everything. The Bible calls this being “God” and the story that Genesis unfolds seems predominantly God’s story, though steadily unfolded through people who interact with Him and His creation. When God saw how bad things had become on earth: violence pouring from the evil thoughts that ruled every person’s heart, He said he would wipe out the whole thing. Then He said it again. To Noah. Along with a few instructions that preserved Noah and his family. You know the rest of that violent story—which is really no kids’ story at all.
“Corrupt and full of violence.” I hope that does not describe your work place today, though it is a theme carried out through the entire story of God’s interaction with the earth. But no matter how it feels today, Noah’s story is about pursuing and preserving conversational moments that move toward freedom from the violence and evil that so easily infects all we do. Living above the fray—not by willpower but by deeply connecting with this mysterious being.
It’s a strange story and not at all polite or nice. It raises all sorts of questions and highlights unsolvable mysteries we rarely speak of—a perfect story to occupy midweek.
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Image Credit: Bechet Benjamin via Iconology
Year in Chesed—Day 11: What if we cultivated radical availability?
One thing that happens in a conversation is that we become available to each other. It’s a function of simply talking. But what if our talk was all bound up with the baggage of our intent? We want to be seen as a certain person. Wise. Funny. Clever. So we use pre-fab phrases and clichés and stories heard elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that, but at some point we need to drop the modular phrases and really tell who we are. This is part of being present.
I’m a fan of the writer/theologian/activist/martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His clear writing never fails to pull me in. And I love how he raises my eyes to see what a people could look like who love God together. In Life Together he wrote that brotherhood (or “fellowship” a word desperately in need of rehab) is not some ideal we strive toward or some pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, if only we could get our ducks in a row, shape up, and all that “I’ve got to do better” stuff. Instead brotherhood is a “…reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” (Life Together, 30) Bonhoeffer suggested that in this reality, it is not the man or woman “furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities” (32) who has the ability to bind others to her or himself. Instead, the real power is what God says. The Wikipedia entry on Life Together is thought-provoking:
Bonhoeffer felt strongly that there is an empirical experience that results from meeting with others to become intimate before Christ. He suggests that Christians should confess their sins to one another. He states, “The church community, not some philosophical or theological system of thought, is God’s final revelation of the divine self as Christ existing in community”. In other words, Christians should not wait for a revelation from God before they do something, but because they are continuously and prayerfully considering what is right, it is possible that God has already revealed His will to them and they need to summon up the courage to take the appropriate actions.
Yesterday’s postcard from chesed talked about the ways of the Eternal One with the wicked and the righteous. For the wicked: separation. For the righteous: presence. Except that’s not the image painted on the card. The image had two parts: one was like a desert with scorching winds, smelling of sulfur and raining coals. One part was a face. God’s face.
I cannot claim any righteousness, except in agreement with Bonhoeffer about what the Christ did. I mostly live my life on the other end of the spectrum. And yet the picture of radical availability gives me a bit more courage to hide less and pursue being available.
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Image Credit: Bad Postcards
Please Write This Book: A Year in Chesed
of course there is dancing
In A Year in Provence, British copywriter Peter Mayle, moved to France and wrote about this place of exceptional food, wine and beauty. Mayle provided his reader with nearly first-hand experiences of cooking, shopping and conversation. Along the way we saw hints of a different way of living.
I want to read a book that takes a similar journey, but rather than air travel to a glorious foreign country, I want the author to settle into a land devoid of anxiety and full of bonhomie toward men and women. I want the author to get there by following the thread of meaning from a very particular foreign word: “Chesed”
Google chesed and you’ll find a central Jewish value that means (for starters) “lovingkindness,” but points to much, much more. This old Hebrew word appears 247 times in the Torah and 127 times alone in the Psalms. “Chesed” has shades of meaning in the Torah, variously translated to English as: loving-kindness, mercy, favor, pity.
I imagine living in chesed is something like life in a foreign country. My glimpses of this country come mostly through the Psalmists who use the word again and again as they respond to or acknowledge God’s care. It is a word that describes a way of life that is the polar opposite of my country’s “Black Friday,” and all that consumerist orgy represents.
As you write this book, please take long, generous expeditions into this land of living in gratefulness and thanksgiving. Explore how the inhabitants of this land depend on materials and attitudes already in their possession. Please show me what contentedness looks like. Show me how they brush off the slights and insults and lack of fame because they are grounded with a deeply-rooted faith-joy in the creator. I imagine this land as anti-Kim Kardashian: Sopping with contentment. Joy. Stability. Not glamorous. Not narcissistic. Not attention-seeking. So that means your book won’t get on the news every evening. But I’ll buy a copy.
Spend a full year there. Show me what happens when the crops are not bountiful and enemies encroach. Show me chesed when taxes are due and when plans go terribly wrong.
Please write this book soon because my land is teaming with insects whose bite results in a longing for more shiny stuff and much daily fame. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking through the postcards the psalmists sent.
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Image Credit: Via 2headedsnake
Extreme Listening in a Congregation: Framing a Question and Listening for the Reply
and yet, sometimes it does work
Once upon a time a church had outgrown their facility and the leaders wanted to raise money to build. So they thought of a campaign and called it “Hearing from God.” In the campaign they asked members to pray about how they should give and then pledge toward the amount they heard. After several months of praying, along with weekly stories from the pulpit of people who prayed, heard and decided to give generously, the final day came when all the pledges were in. But the pledges did not cover the costs of the new building—not even close.
Did the “Hearing from God” campaign succeed as a marketing tool? Yes. The campaign focused congregational interest by tying growth plans with the expectation that this was God’s vision and God’s work. This tactic is nothing new to the human condition, whether we’re talking about starting a war, running for office, providing jet fuel for the pastor’s personal jet or gassing-up any other part of the church growth business The campaign worked exactly as planned: it helped elicit pledges from the congregation, pledges over and above typical giving.
Did the “Hearing from God” campaign succeed as a moment of corporate listening? No. And massively so. The congregation was asking “Should we?” while the leaders were asking “How much?” The end of the campaign revealed how different the two questions were, as leaders refused to revisit the what they actually heard from God. Instead they pushed the project forward, despite the seemingly obvious conclusions.
The multi-million dollar project moved ahead, but the twist on hearing and resultant lack of listening initiated a corrosive set of questions about leadership. Subsequent decisions about firing and hiring supported the growing congregational awareness that the entire church entity had been hijacked by a set of leaders pursuing private dreams. “Hearing from God” became a shorthand joke among the congregation for whatever current project leadership was pursuing. Over the course of the next two years, thirty-three to fifty percent of the long-term members leaked out the back door.
What does it cost to avoid hearing?
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Image credit: x-planes
Take This Word to Rehab: “fellowship”
Old becomes very, very new
If it makes you think of blue-haired older women drinking tea and serving Jello salad in a musty church basement—like I did—then you need rehab.
A few of us are making our way through an ancient text: a very old letter from around the first century. The writer said he had seen and heard and touched a man claiming to be God. This writer, eager to connect with his audience, was also eager for his audience to connect with this Man (the writer said his “joy would be complete” if they also had “fellowship”). That’s because there was something about “fellowship” that was not just “nice” and way more even than “robust.” As one of our readers put it: “these first few lines are awesome.” The writer opened an invitation to some kind of life and some kind of relationship that was well beyond ordinary human experience. The open invitation hints at far more than idle conversation. The writer invites full-on partnership/participation/relationship with this God and God-Man and the other people known to both.
Which is awesome. And becoming more so every day.
I see the notion of “fellowship” changing before my eyes.
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Image: MyModernMet.com
How to be with a God intent on reunion?
Waiting is one surefire method.
Our limitations lead us to ask, but then drop us until ask is met with answer.
Waiting is the reexamination mill through which motive, intent, goal and dream are ground into a gray paste to be reconfigured and reissued—or tossed. It’s a necessary process. Part of the human condition. No one escapes waiting.
Seeking while waiting is key. Seeking with others who also wait is even better.
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Image Credit: Typeverything
Person of the Book or People of the Book? Love Wins by Rob Bell (Partial review)
It’s too easy to fool ourselves.
Just how blind am I?
Recently I sat with some well-respected relatives who had devoted their lives to pursuing God. Our conversation turned to quick jibes at Rob Bell’s Love Wins. I had only vaguely heard of the book and the controversy surrounding his reading of the Bible. But knowing very little didn’t stop me from defending Mr. Bell purely based on my growing admiration for people trying to reframe stale old arguments.
My uncle said “You have to know the Book to know the Author of the book.”
I found myself in agreement and then in violent disagreement. I thought of my childhood and young adulthood growing up with the Book—that is, the Bible. We spent time in it every day. We memorized it, acted it out and generally knew it pretty well. But it wasn’t until solid conversations with others, both dead (that is, authors who left their books behind) and alive, helped me start to see the shortcuts I had taken in my own single-minded reading. That is, I started to see the blinders I wore that I didn’t even know about. I need conversation with others to help me see my blinders. I can now reassert my love for the Biblical texts, their authority in my life and the God behind those texts and Jesus the Christ who lived, died and lived—but I do so knowing faithful, admirable people can and do disagree over how some/many of those texts are read.
Can you be a person of the book without admitting others into your thought circle? There is a blindness that settles on us even more securely when we think we are just looking at the text and pulling out truth. The problem is not with the text. The problem is with our blindness, which is just another feature of the limitations of our humanness. This is not about more education. Nor is it about liberal vs. conservative. It is about seeking help to locate our blind spots. Of course, we don’t go looking for our blind spots. We go out looking for someone to tell something interesting too, and we end up finding out there is something pretty important we missed.
Also there is another piece: that of holding scripture in faith while allowing questions to sharpen and make visible some critical pieces we need to know to move forward. There is no letting go of faith here, but there is a willingness to help move closer to that truth.
I’m partway through Mr. Bell’s book and enjoy his fresh take very much. I find myself agreeing with his point that heaven is both in the future and partially present. Same with Hell. So far I don’t see anything anti-Biblical. And people from my particular tradition need only refer back to Dr. Ladd’s famous The Gospel of the Kingdom to be reminded of the now/not yet nature of Jesus’ talk about life on this planet. However, my reading of Mr. Bell’s third chapter makes me restless, because I believe there are consequences to what we say and do. I want to hear his full argument before commenting further.
My point: to be a person of the Book is to be a person of conversation.
My wife and I have been blessed by a group who will think together verbally about the Book. This group counters and challenges the inward-looking tendencies arising from my pietistic background. Certainly there is great benefit to carefully watching over our personal devotion. But real truth demands the relationships that talk.
Take-away: don’t rush to judgment in conversation.
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Image Credit: Achille Beltrame
Riot, Restart and Scrubbed Minutes: The Bradlee Dean Prayer
But really…what happens when someone prays?
Say more.
Last Friday Bradlee Dean gave the opening prayer at the Minnesota House. His words caused such uproar that Speaker Zeller apologized and had the prayer scrubbed from the historical records of the day. The session was restarted and Rev. Grady St. Dennis, the house chaplain gave the new prayer.
Was it a prayer Mr. Dean offered or was it a speech intended as a burr under the saddle of the gathered legislators? I don’t know all that Mr. Dean stands for, but his rhetorical mix seems misdirected. Yesterday I wrote about mixing an ancient form with something of today. In Mr. Dean’s prayer, the result from mixing an ancient form and using it as a rhetorical bully pulpit is repellent. The communication seems more speech than prayer, and seems to have been interpreted that way by the humans in attendance. And yet it is possible Mr. Dean was sincere in his conversation with God.
The notion of a public prayer is actually kind of complicated, and is perhaps a mix of forms from the beginning. One person speaks aloud. The person implores God’s attention and action. Perhaps the person seeks wisdom and mercy, or help with any of the myriad needs finite beings have. Listeners listen and agree. Or disagree. Rather than praying along and seeking the same things, the potential prayers in the House rose in disagreement shouted the guy down (figuratively, I think).
I agree with Rev. Dennis Johnson writing about the work of guest chaplains in saying “We have a special burden to include all people in our prayers….” But I’m not so sure about the last part of the quote in Lori Sturdevant’s op-ed: “…and to make the prayers nonsectarian.” Because real prayer must come from somewhere, some belief in God. It is true that belief in God need not highlight a specific brand of religion, but any prayer must be grounded in belief that God exists and hears—that alone will be offensive to some. Otherwise the prayer is just good wishes and positive vibes—not bad stuff, just not, well, real. And not that useful in seeking help from the Eternal.
King Solomon got the form right (1 Kings 8.22ff) and set a lasting example and practice. Of course, Solomon’s prayer was spoken among a set of like-minded people. So the context helps the prayer stay as a prayer: spoken to God from a bunch of people going a similar direction.
If we’re going to have prayer in the Minnesota House, there needs to be some elasticity in allowing people to pray for real. And people praying need to examine their intentions before uttering word one. But let’s continue the notion of conversing publicly with the Creator.
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Image Credit: Buramai
conversation is an engine 
Copyranter’s Dad is Dying
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Copyranter, my favorite, consistently profane and truth-speaking advertising blogger, today wrote about his father dying of cancer. “Asshole commenters” have been lining up to sympathize and pray and weep. All great responses.
or does prayer have much deeper capacity?
Prayer is like wishing, right?
Mention “prayer” and people mostly nod in agreement—what is there to disagree with? My colleague’s husband fell down a set of stairs and broke his neck. Her email from intensive care told the full story. People responded—as they will—with kind wishes and promises of prayer, among other things. Later she updated all concerned with the good news that he would fully recover, and went on to thank people for their positive energy, prayers and good wishes. Her update-—it seems to me—caught the primary understanding of prayer for most people, monotheists of most stripe and Christians included. Prayer, positive energy, good wishes, wishing on a star—all sort of the same thing. There is mystery in the words spoken in silence and the desire and the pain and the faith. Maybe something happens when someone prays. Maybe not. Prayer is hard to characterize.
Probe with a few questions—even among staunch believers and practiced pray-ers—and the mystery only deepens. “Prayer works,” someone might say. And they point to a prayer they prayed and then some related action that occurred. Did their prayer work? Possibly. Is there power in prayer? Maybe. And maybe not like we think. Certainly God has power—complete, entire power over all that is and ever was. And certainly God is under no obligation to fill our order, answer our requests, or even hear us—unless as He obligates himself.
We ask things of God from all sorts of motives with all sorts of expectations. The truth is we know very little about what happens when we pray. But we know prayer is the example and model the Bible holds to out for interacting with God. What does the Bible say about the connection between prayer and action?
Bible people were always talking with God. The list of praying people is extensive and includes those who were face to face with God (Adam and Eve, Moses), sometimes hand to hand (Jacob), as well as those who sat through years of silence in their prayer (Abraham, Hannah), and everyone in between. We typically think of prayer as a solitary, passive activity of last-resort. And yet the Bible routinely shows action following people praying. And not just small stuff, but game-changing action. Action that shifts a story to an entirely different place.
I’m trying to learn more about prayer. And I’m praying for Copyranter and his dad and his family.
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Image credit: stopping off place via this isn’t happiness
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Written by kirkistan
March 3, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Posted in Ancient Text, Communication is about relationship, Prayer
Tagged with asshole commenter, copyranter, God