A New Understanding of Adoption

I’m come face to face with a type of grieving that I never expected. It came not from the death of a person I’ve known and loved. The grief came in the death of a relationship. It was a death that I never anticipated and as necessary as it was, it has been extremely painful. The pain and heartache run very deep. The man whose name I bear and whose DNA is part of my physical make up is now dead to me.

It pains me to write these words and to publicly admit this truth in this way. It feels a lot like a personal failure to make the admission. It took me 45 years to come to terms with the reality that the one whose name I bear was never really a father, at least in the way that I would define that relationship now. At times where a father would be available for support, encouragement and nurture I was instead confronted with emptiness. For years the family interpreted the situation with an assumption that depression and mental illness lay at the root of his action and inaction. However, in the last year our family has been confronted with a different explanation. It has not been mental illness that rendered him incapable of these relationships. His life is profoundly marked by a personality disorder that is completely volitional. He has chosen to be this way. He has chosen relationships marked not by mercy, grace and mutuality but by manipulation, abuse and degradation.

As I came to terms with this reality and began to reinterpret the relationship based on this new look at reality I began to push back against his garbage. I simply would not allow myself or my family to be manipulated and abused.

During the ensuing months the relationship became increasingly toxic and I was moving closer and closer to making a break. The break came in early November. In a number of related incidents he acted in ways that were so abusive to my family and others around us that for my own health and that of my family I could no longer maintain this relationship. The pain, grief and tears ran deep. It shook my life completely. The last three months, as the relationship spiraled to this conclusion, have been the most painful of my life.

While there was much grieving, I was able to recognize and hold on to a deeper truth that has marked by life in these last two years. My experience with God’s intimacy in my life has provided for me a meaningful flotation device as I was buffeted on this storm of grief. I came to realize that even if my father was absent, my Father was always present. As I remember and reflect, I can see God’s presence. At this stage in my life I understand the Fatherhood of God more deeply and personally than I ever have before. While I know it is not terribly PC to speak of God in these terms, I don’t wish to suggest anything resembling gender exclusion. Rather, this is an expression of individual experience that is deeply personal. I think I also understand Paul’s words about adoption better than I ever have before.

While I never would have expected to have to go through this sort of ordeal and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, I’ve known in no uncertain terms the gracious hand of God. I’ve known nurture, companionship, mercy and healing. All of these experiences have served to draw me deeper to the heart of God and brought a new breadth of compassion for those who suffer through the pain of broken relationships. I give thanks for all of God’s gifts even through the pain of grief.

Even Faithful Folks Can Benefit From Silence

With my Bible Study class last Monday night I worked through the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. It is a truly beautiful story that is such a wonderful parallel to the story of Abraham and Sarah. For years Abraham and Sarah had been told that they would bear a son. As a childless couple, advanced in years, it would probably take a while to come to terms with this kind of news. Zechariah, in the throws of fulfilling his sacred task as a priest of the Lord, is given the same news, but clearly the timeline is considerably compressed. As is perfectly understandable Zechariah has to absorb such news. His response to Gabriel is traditionally interpreted as a lack of faith, or doubt. Personally, I think that is a bad rap. After all, we’re told from the beginning that Zechariah and Elizabeth are righteous people who live blamelessly. Rather than doubt it is a statement that seeks understanding. Clearly Zechariah needs to come to terms with this news. Gabriel obliges by striking him mute. He is to be mute until it is time to announce God’s Good News. While some might see being struck mute as punishment, I’ve come to understand that it is truly a gift, an opportunity to make sense of the incredible.

I’ve learned in my own growth in the discipline of silence that it is truly amazing what I can hear, discern and perceive when I shut up long enough to listen. We live in such a loud world and we spend so much time speaking. It is often difficult to hear God, understand God’s Word and come to terms with God’s claim on us in Christ when there is so much noise. So, I’ve learned the value of silence and listening. Even now, so shaped and transformed by the rigors of the Two Year Academy, my need to engage in silence is increasing rather than decreasing. I’ve found the core of my life and faith in listening in silence.

While I haven’t done anything that represents an organized study of this notion, my sense is that all of us can benefit from taking the time to turn off the noise and listen to God. This discipline can do so much to orient us more completely to God. This is consistent with the ways that Paul exhorts the early church (in most of his letters) to stay focused on living faithfully in Christ. This focus can only come when we regularly take the time to turn off the TV, shake off the world and settle into God’s presence. I’ve come to believe that this practice is essential to a perfecting spirituality and relationship with Christ.

Spend some time in silence. Be patient…it might take some time to get into the discipline. In time, it will be worth the time it takes.

Fire…and What Came Next

This week is a change of pace for my blog. My journey took an interesting turn this week. On Sunday night, at the end of a birthday celebration, I saw the news of Ramona’s evacuation in the face of the oncoming Witch Creek Fire that would race through the central part of San Diego County covering something close to 40 miles in less than 24 hours). I’m not sure how long before the order had been given, but I began to frantically call anyone whose number I had or remembered and got nothing but answering machines. Having served in the community for six years, I became attached to a number of those folks. While I am no longer their pastor, I am still their friend. I resolved the next day to head down to the area shelters to find and connect with these friends. Little did I know what would lay ahead.

My journey there was long…the fire had already breached the 15 Freeway on its race to the ocean. I had to detour all the way to the coast because the inland route was blocked. My search took me to Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego (soon to be home to many thousands of displaced people). What a truly extraordinary experience. I ended up spending the whole night, partly because the freeway was closed and partly because I simply couldn’t leave. I prayed with people, counseled people, moved food and supplies, tried to coordinate efforts and in other ways simply tried to be present for folks.

What I experienced was astounding. First, the City of San Diego had learned the lessons they needed to learn after the Cedar Fire four years ago. The coordination effort at the stadium was very good. Relief came on line fairly quickly. More extraordinary than that was the response of the people of the greater San Diego area. Shortly after noon a steady stream of people began to drive to the stadium. Each car and truck was loaded with relief supplies. Everything from personal hygiene products to bedding to clothing to water to food to baby supplies to pet food came pouring in in mass quantities. A company came with the ability to do cell phone charging. People had wireless internet access. Insurance companies soon arrived to begin the process of relief. Restaurants came to bring prepared food for meals. Volunteers swarmed to Qualcomm. Some had needed medical specialties which were especially important with the numbers of elderly evacuated from assisted living and skilled nursing. Some simply wanted to help. All were willing to do whatever was necessary to bring relief.

For almost 24 hours I watched and participated in the pageant of the best of the human condition. When the freeway opened up and relief arrived I was torn between wanting to stay and help and needing to go home to sleep. In the end, sleep won out, but the lessons learned, the hope experienced and the inspiration gained will carry me for a long time to come.

Drinking From a Fire Hose

An interesting by product of the growth in spirit that I’ve experienced recently has been an expanded vision. As I’ve found my center more firmly rooted in God it’s as if I’ve been able to lift my head higher and see more broadly around me. I see more and I see more clearly than I ever have before. I see myself, my ministry, my world and the path that God is stretching ahead of me with increasing clarity.

On the one hand this has been exciting. Pieces of my life, ministry and calling are coming together in ways that I’ve never before seen. It is giving me energy and focus that I’ve not had in a long time and a quality of spirituality that I’ve never had. This feeling of clarity reminds me a lot of the experience of getting a new prescription for my glasses. It isn’t as though I was totally blind with my previous glasses. The change and loss of focus was so gradual that it was almost imperceptible. It is only when the new glasses arrived that I realized just how out of focus things have become.

There is a shadow to this experience, however. As this greater clarity and energy emerges, so does an urgency to press forward. With the urgency to press forward grows the list of things that need to be done to live into and accomplish this new vision. Time becomes more and more a precious commodity. Oddly enough, what has suffered most for me these last few weeks is the intentional time with God that brought forth the greater clarity in the beginning. (Irony is a funny thing)

There is no doubt that drinking from a fire hose will satisfy the thirst of anyone who is parched. I still have to remember that too much of a good thing is as equally undesirable as the absence of it in the first place. In the midst of all that is new, exciting, stimulating, energizing and empowering I have to hold fast to my rule of life. This rule of life is more than simply a task that I’ve set for myself; I believe that it was discerned as part of my experience of God’s grace poured out through a more disciplined spiritual practice. This pattern of living while far from rigid and restrictive is nonetheless essential to living into God’s preferred future.

The learning continues. The journey continues.

Completing Another Loop

I have a strong “full-circle” feeling these days. My first posting on this blog was about experiencing silence as a spiritual discipline. I remember feeling energized and empowered as the Holy Spirit opened silence up to me. No longer was silence a dark hole that was daunting and fierce. Learning silence as an open and inviting reality in which I could know and be known more fully by God has been a gateway to a perfecting spirituality.

The strength of this experience and the impact of silence in my life and spirit are reflected in my rule of life. I’ve come to realize that it is easy for me to live life at break neck speed. When feeling pushed and stressed I can simply barrel ahead. In this mode, I put my ahead down and go. At times like this it is rare that I would even lift my head to make sure I’m going in the desired direction. Sometimes I’ve ended up in unfamiliar and even undesirable places. As I’ve consciously worked to put silence at the center of my rule of life I’m finding that is slowing me down at the times I’d be prone to barrel ahead. That period of silence, to pause and swim in the fullness of God’s presence, reorients me to the path I’m on. I’m finding great solace and strength in this discipline.

To say that I’m finding a purpose in silence is not completely accurate. To have silence at the center of my life is more than seeing silence as a tool. There is a temptation to think of this experience as “retreating” into silence. These moments of pause are anything put retreat. I have a deep desire to walk this path with God more fully and more completely. Living out of silence instead of living frantically I feel more fully grounded to the path. For so much of my life and ministry I’ve found myself running from one big idea to the next searching for something that always seemed beyond my sight and understanding. This pattern of life made for a pretty scattered existence. In the last few weeks, I’ve been learning silence as the core experience with God that takes me out of this pattern of running and searching. It’s as if I’ve discovered gravity.

Living Into a Rule of Life

There was a period of time in my life that I would have given a limb to have someone help me develop a rule of life. I would have loved to have a well set regimen of bullet points to follow that would outline a life of spiritual practices. That would seem so simple and so straightforward. That regimented a practice would make spirituality so “easy”. That time in my life was marked by a desire and chasing after an easier way, a shortcut way to a preconceived and superficial way of being in relationship with Christ. The shortcut and superficial way will no longer to do it for me. I’ve come to recognize that I need a rule of life that gives me more than the “five easy steps to Jesus”. I have found myself yearning for a more organic model that has life beyond the bullet points.

As I’ve lived into the extraordinary experience of God’s grace poured out in my life through the Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation I find myself yearning for depth and breadth with God. One image that is growing in strength as a metaphor for my faith is a well developed Scriptural model of the Tree of Life. I’m growing into the image of my life as something that is deeply rooted into the soil of God’s presence and promise…a tree that is planted to grow and bear fruit. A rule of life for this growing self-image is one that is shaped by practices through which God’s grace will water and nourish the “tree of life.”

The purpose of a rule of life is to sustain my life in Christ. It is that simple and that complex. It is the intentional work of not losing the momentum in my deepening life with Christ that I’ve learned through the Academy. To use the image in a previous posting, the rule of life I discern for myself is a model of life with Christ and spiritual practice that will sustain my life while working without the net that the Academy experience has been for me. It will be the means of grace that will sustain my life in Christ without the regular infusion of a week at the Academy.

I’ve experienced enough to know that my rule of life is always going to be developing. As my life changes, as my circumstances shift and as my life with Christ grows, my rule will shift. With that being said, this is the best representation of my rule at this stage of life and faith:

First, it is rooted in solitude and silence. I’ve come to recognize and understand that the foundation of my life and ministry is silence. The nature of my life and work has always been frenetic. Learning the discipline of silence helps to calm me and slow me. Silence is the fertile and watered soil that provides nourishment for the deepest roots.

Welling up out of this discipline of solitude and silence and spreading out around the roots of the tree of life are four specific areas of life and practice. These four areas work together as a balance and a partnership. The first two have to do with my life of spiritual practices; one is inwardly focused while the other is more communally focused. On the individual side, I recognize the need to have a spiritual director. In addition to the individual spiritual practices, I know that the way to keep them from becoming impacted is through the insight of a trained spiritual director. The communal side will involve a weekly covenant accountability group made up of men I know who are on a similar path.

The other two areas involve how I live and practice my life and vocation. On the one side of the balance is to live sacramentally. That is, I will live outwardly and consciously as a means of grace for others. The other side of the balance is to live invitationally. I will live in ways that seek to open up the spiritual journey and the path of discipleship to others. I will seek to live and share my journey in ways that might encourage others to embark or deepen their own journey to the heart of God.

I have in my mind a beautiful, 3 dimensional image of this organic model; however I’m such a poor artist that I’m largely incapable of rendering it on paper. So for now, mere words must suffice.

Learning to Work Without a Net

I suppose I’ve not yet wanted to come to terms with the fact that my Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation experience has come to a close. I really think that I’ve been in denial for the last three weeks, hence the dearth of posting to this blog. For the first time in two years I’m facing my daily spiritual practices without the safety net of another week at the Academy coming up in just a matter of weeks. That glorious discipline is over. I now have to face my day to day practice without the comfort that comes from knowing that I will soon be immersed again in the beautiful and transformational experience of worship, Eucharist, covenant groups, learning, silence and spiritual friendships.

This is a day and a prospect I’ve tried to avoid. Being the creature of habit that I am, I’ve dreaded this day. I love the routine and I love the accountability that was both implicit and explicit in the pattern of the Academy. The depth and breadth of this accountability is something that I’m just now coming to realize. This has not just been a series of self-contained warm, fuzzy experiences of an amorphous and undirected love. Throughout the Academy experience there has been a strong (but not overbearing) expectation that the participants will grow in grace moving more deeply into our relationship with Christ and the setting in place of patterns of worship, practice and service that will continue to grow us all in grace and experience of the Risen Christ. In fact, even though much of the experience of the last two years was about developing a series of practices that will enable my ongoing spiritual growth and growth in grace, the goal was not simply the development of a set of rote practices…bullet points of self-imposed expectations that could very easily lose their luster, fade over time and become irrelevant as circumstances change. The Academy experience was not simply one of practice, but of heart, life and motivation. It was about a change of identity.

What I’ve discovered in these three weeks as I’ve tried to process this transition in my life is that my motivation for my faith, my life and my ministry is changing. I’m more deeply motivated by living faithfully in my relationship with Christ than I am in being professionally proficient. I understand a new relationship between these two vital parts of living under orders within the Body of Christ. While I’ve interpreted that professional proficiency is what is required of me (and that is not inherently bad, merely incomplete), the pathway to professional proficiency as a clergy person isn’t about academic training. It isn’t about institutional maintenance. I’m not called simply to turnout a conveyor of good church folks. In line with all those called by Christ who have gone before me, my call is to make disciples for Christ. This is not an academic or institutional enterprise…it is a spiritual endeavor. Without living into and out of a perfecting spirituality the goal of professional proficiency will remain a caricature of who I am called to be. What the Academy has nurtured within me is the experience that teaches me that what Christ is doing deep within my life is of first priority and that spiritual skills and practices will always be stunted until they flow out of my experience with Christ.

A New Experience of Grace

I’ve had a strong sense in recent months of being immersed in grace. I’ve considered water images as a way of getting my thoughts around the idea of grace. The strong childhood memories of the small lake where I grew up are enduring images of the experience of being immersed in grace.

This morning, quite unexpectedly (but isn’t that the way it usually happens), I had a new experience of grace. I don’t think that it necessarily replaces the image of immersion. Instead I think this new image is for me the next meaningful step into an ever deepening experience of God’s abiding grace. As I sat in prayer this morning with a clarity and focus I haven’t had in quite some time, I felt as though I had become woven into God’s grace. It was an experience of warmth, comfort and belonging. It was an experience of grace that was no longer outside of me or some how distinct or separate from me. It was more than the experience of grace becoming a part of my life. Suddenly I felt, perhaps for the first conscious time, that I had become (or at least was becoming) part of God’s grace. Maybe there had been obstacles, unseen but formidable, that had prevented this experience earlier. Maybe that is how it’s always been, but I didn’t have the “eyes to see”. At the end of the day, the whys don’t matter.

As I’ve tried to unpack this image through the course of a busy day, the picture of a patchwork quilt came to mind. I could see my patch, the little piece that is my life, against the backdrop of the Great Quilt that is grace. My little piece, ragged around the edges, made of a unique piece of cloth with nothing particularly compelling to offer in color or design, woven into this incredible masterwork. My life, woven into the fabric of grace and God’s work in creation, is no longer separate from the great reality of grace. No longer is grace something that exists outside of my life, my spirit or my reality.

I think a fundamental shift in my mindset has taken place. No longer is grace an ego centered experience of God’s mercy, love, etc., etc. coming to me in a J.T. sized bite. By God’s astonishing (no longer merely amazing) grace, I have become part of a larger whole, a larger reality. I, with all of my raggedness, imperfections and ordinariness, have become drawn into, perhaps even created into, something that defies description.

This may be the first time that I’ve conceived of the notion that God has not been becoming part of me on this journey, but rather I am finding my place, my home and my identity in God.

Leggo My Ego

It has taken awhile to get it through my thick head, but I’m finally coming to terms with the length of the road toward healing and transformation. For the last three months of my life and ministry my refrain has been taking my ego offline. At first it seemed a relatively straightforward affair. In the familiarity of my home and my ministry I was able to navigate this change with great confidence. All seemed to go well. Then came our Annual Conference session…I was prepared to stay focused on taking my ego out of the equation and intentionally living into a ministry of renewal rather than reformation. What I was unprepared for was the strength of the pull into the institutional mentality of the Conference. I felt sucked back into old mindsets of the shortcomings of the institution and the need for reformation. In spite of my best efforts, my ego went for a swim in these dark and murky waters. In the process, I got hurt and frustrated in all the ways that I tried to avoid. I felt angry. I felt a deep sense of entitlement. I felt a deep frustration with an ego driven assessment of the short sighted opinions of others. I definitely need to repent.

A week of vacation in a warm, tropical location helped to decompress the anger, hurt and frustration and to lick the wounds of not being as far along the journey as I thought I was. I discovered that life in the institution demands a strength and vigilance that is seldom needed in the local church. The experienced also reinforced for me the counter productivity that often goes hand in hand with heavily invested and competing egos. In the healing of that week of vacation I began to experience new power in not simply focusing on the removal of ego but the intentional focus on the presence of Christ.

This focus came, as is often the case, in God’s time. Two days after returning from vacation I embarked on a 10 mission trip with 5 other adults and 20 Senior High youth. If there was ever a time and a need to take one’s ego off line, it was then. I love working with youth (for more than 25 years) and I’ve been taking this mission trip since I graduated from Seminary, but this particular trip proved to be different. With so many young and developing egos stretching and flexing new muscles there would have been plenty of opportunities for a heavily invested ego to do battle. Only when I turned my attention to Christ present in our midst and in each of the youth and away from my own ego, my own needs and my own need to be right did I realize a new richness of relationship and possibility for growth in faith that could come for my self and for these youth. Times of potential conflict became times of learning and growth. I hope and pray that I was able to model a different picture of faith, authority and leadership. I pray for the grace and strength to continue to build on what I’ve begun with these relationships.

The experiences of the last month are also lengthening my view of time and instilling in me the patience to walk this road the requisite one step at a time. This has become a corollary for me. Just as I learned of silence as the fullness of God not the absence of sound, I’m learning that faithful discipleship is the fullness of Christ rather than merely the absence of ego.

Getting Smacked in the Face, Again

Have you ever had one of those moments on the journey when a hole just seems to jump up and bite you? You know, you’re just tripping along minding your own business and out of nowhere you get tripped up, snared, knocked over… The thing that sucks about that scenario is that it comes when we least expect it. Typically it comes, also, when we need it most. I write this posting at an Annual Conference Plenary. Conference is nearly over, and as I reflect on my experience of this Conference in light of experiences of grace I’ve previously shared, I realize that I’ve been smacked in the face. I found myself tripping over my own ego.

I suppose that this should be considered a confessional. In spite of my desire to take my ego out of my faith and my service, in this setting, I’ve allowed it to sneak back in. In a place that could offer great hope and possibility for faith, transformation, discipleship and grace, I lament the ways that I have participated in ambition, jealousy, suspicion and mistrust. Those pieces that I had hoped to be in the process of being healed from that I recognized as having no place in my life suddenly were much closer than I expected or like. OUCH!

The irony of this confession is that the Bible studies that have begun each of our Conference days have talked about the power, reality and promise of God’s Shalom in the midst of a broken and uncertain world. Even as we’ve talked about shalom and challenged toward embracing the full depth of shalom, I’ve been stung by the absence of shalom in my own heart in these few days. I’m caught in the tension of claiming renewal as the authentic shape of my ministry and seeing the need to work toward the change of systemic practice and understanding in the life of the Annual Conference. It has created a decidedly unsettled feeling in my spirit.

How do I bear witness to the power and possibility of transformation in an unwieldy and cumbersome institution whose culture is permeated by suspicion, cynicism and apathy? How do I bear witness to the need to faithfully live in kairos (God’s time) in a culture that is obsessed with rapid answers? How do I bear witness to the possibility of shalom within a culture that struggles to be gentle with self and with other? At the risk of sounding petulant, how do I bear this witness in a community in which I don’t have a voice? Perhaps it’s only that I don’t have the voice that I think I should have. Perhaps I do have a voice, but it is that I don’t think I’m being heard. In any case, I’ve got to deal with my own perceptions of being voiceless or not being heard. I’ve tripped over my ego. It is time to be led in the next step of healing.

Authentically Living Into Change

For about a month I've been living with the knowledge that something has changed deep within me. The deep interior work of the Holy Spirit has brought deep healing and transformation into my life. When the Spirit's work hit critical mass in my spirit, the recognition of the change came quickly.

As quickly and easily has the change came to me, I've discovered that living into this change, into this new reality is an altogether different challenge. Throughout my ministry I've endeavored to live with all of the integrity and authenticity that I could muster. For the most part there have been few tectonic changes in my experience. This has given me the luxury of transitional living. Incorporation of new experiences, ideas and understandings have been experienced more like a steady flow rather than a earth shaking change. Because the most recent change has been so deep and so immediate I have floundered a bit.

Because of the profundity of the change I felt called and compelled to mark the change. I wanted to have an outward and visible sign of the interior and spiritual change. Due to the nature of the change itself, the most meaningful expression was shaving my head. This wasn’t about being a spectacle to the world and drawing attention to my self. I did it to have something that would be a reminder of the change that I’ve felt. It has been the constant reminder of transformation and surrender to God that I hoped it would be. Each day I've been approaching shaving as a spiritual discipline. I will offer my breath prayer and/or think of people I know who need prayer. This has been very helpful. But there is still a piece that is missing.

What I am now discovering is that nurturing the root of this change will take a level of discipline that I have very little experience in practicing. I have a new identity, a new self-conception, and with it must come new practices, deeper practices. Suddenly the image of new wine in old wine skins takes on a new depth of meaning. Daunting or not, this is my path, this is my journey. Lord, may each step be marked with the grace that has seen me this far.

A New Community

The experience of tectonic movement in my life and spirit is becoming more common. For many months now, I’ve been sharing my journey and the deep interior work of the Holy Spirit in my life. As I conceived of this work, celebrated it and gave thanks for it I unconsciously thought of this work as a largely singular practice. My experiences of the Triune God have become so deeply personal; there was an element to it that seemed to be just me and God. Even though the Academy for Spiritual Formation experience has been anything but a singular experience, the place and power of that covenantal community experience hadn’t filtered down through the layers of my life to nurture the depth of my faith.

I’ve come to learn that involvement in an intentional covenantal community is vital to spiritual formation. There is no such thing as the solitary spiritual life. I’ve also learned that even in the desert hermitages of the early aesthetic movement there was an intentional, supportive and spiritual community. The extraordinary experiences of healing, grace and transformation that I’ve had would have had no meaning without the movements of prayer, conversation, worship, accountability, table fellowship, joy, laughter and tears that mark the life of the Academy Community that has been drawn together by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit brought each of us to the Academy experience. We all came with different expectations, different experiences, different hurts, different biases and different desires and yet this grand group of diversity has become a means of God’s unique grace for each one of us. We have become a covenant community.

This is having a truly amazing impact on my conception of the church as a Community of Faith. I’m moving beyond a 30 year old paradigm of the church as simply a functional and organic reality. For most of my life I’ve known the power of the community of faith as a force for ministry and God’s reign of love and mercy. Through ministry teams, service projects and hands on community outreach I’ve seen lives changed in some powerful ways. By the great, powerful and reconciling work of the Holy Spirit, the church is drawn together not as an institutional reality but as a living, breathing body of believers. The Body of Christ is called to a work of transformation and yet, this transformation work must be rooted first in the Body’s experience of the transforming work of grace in its life and the life of its members.

Through an intentional and covenantal commitment to prayer, accountability to God and one another, worship, study and growth we become spiritually formed. This work is not solitary it is necessarily the work of the community. The work of intentional covenant community doesn’t supplant the work of mission and evangelism; Matthew 25 and 28 are still quite specific on that matter. The life of being spiritually formed is what gives breath to our outreach. It is what gives us strength when the obstacles get us down. It is what gives us a vivid picture, not only in knowledge but also in experience, of God’s preferred future and the patience to work with God and walk with God instead of thinking that we do it all on our own.

Strength in numbers is not simply a formula for mission. It is the life blood of a covenant community intent on being spiritually formed.

The Master Artist

A clear picture…a beautiful picture…painted on my heart with colors so vibrant that it could only have been a masterpiece brushed by the Master Artist. A sweeping image of the power of promise, possibility and redemption that shine light across and into the darkest corners, this image rendered on flesh and bone, substance and spirit has taken a lifetime to fashion…my lifetime. The Artist has painstakingly crafted this masterwork to make known to all who would gaze upon it the overwhelming power of light to reshape and redefine the world, one life at a time.

This painting is not a museum piece. It was not created to hang on a wall with perfect light in a climate controlled environment. This piece is on perpetual tour. It is to be out in the world, walking the sidewalks and roadways to take its message of hope wherever the path leads. Out in the world the painting becomes vulnerable. This masterwork is always at risk. The hazards of the road can damage and deform the work. The debris that floats on the wind can damage the paint surface and canvas. Salty tears can erode the vibrant colors. Gentle rain and howling storms dilute the clarity and run the picture together. Light begins to fade from the image, darkness and shadows gather. Before too long the image becomes unrecognizable. It becomes a caricature of its former self…damaged, twisted, torn and diluted. It becomes a mockery of the vision that fashioned it.

Too long on the road and the masterwork would simply break apart.

Thankfully the Artist is not merely a gifted Creator. The Artist is also a Master Re-Creator. No matter the path, the Artist’s Studio is never far away. In the safety and security of the Studio the Artist goes to work to restore the original vision and the original hope. The canvas and frame are repaired and strengthened. The sharpness of focus is deftly restored. The vibrant colors are renewed and once again the light shines across and into the dark spaces. The power of promise, possibility and redemption once more shine through. The beauty and luster are restored.

While the artist may have a fleeting thought of hanging the restored masterwork on the wall to protect it from the harsh reality of the world, it is only a fleeting thought. The Artist gives the painting the once over and then sends it back out into the world to share its message of hope. After all, that is what this work was created for…that is where it belongs.

SURRENDER!

The retreat I anticipated at the beginning of this week has been fulfilled in ways that I couldn't possibly have imagined. The interior work of the Spirit has run deep...deeper than I've yet experienced. In fact, the Spirit has taken up rather obvious residence in the deepest recesses of my life, faith and ministry and begun to take the sheets of the furniture and raise the shades on the window. The dark and dusty depths are being exposed to the light. Even though these areas that have been covered over a long time are now revealed and I suppose I should feel a little vulnerable, instead I am rejoicing at this. With the light has come liberation.

This work can be centered around once concept...Surrender. This has been the theme for the day. In the morning I considered the nature of my striving and my struggles in faith and ministry. I considered how the need to prove myself, particularly in stressful and challenging times, and what becomes a sliding off in my spiritual practices demonstrates a fundamental lack of trust in God, in others and in myself. The word that kept coming up was "surrender." I came to terms with a truth that I have known and preached and was able to apply for the first time to my own deep need. The times that I am least inclined to surrender and most likely to hold things closely and go my own way are the times I most need to surrender.

This afternoon as we were considering spiritual practices of leadership and in particular spiritual practices in the area of conflict new insights were born. I've long struggled with and argued with myself about my own predisposition away from conflict. I had to come to terms with my own fundamental errors in regard to conflict in the church. There will never, ever (at least on this side of heaven) be a time when conflict will not exist in the church. Christ himself reminded us of this. There is no way whether by leadership acumen, force of will, depth of spirituality or force of personality that will stem this tide (I knew that, but I chose, instead, to believe a narcissitic fairytale). Into this came surrender. Suddenly a spiritual practices approach to conflict became a concrete way toward submission.

I continued my walk, praying my breath prayer "Shepherd of the Flock--show me Your way." I reflected on the vision that God was springing forth in my life and I continued to reflect on surrender. As I walked and communed with the very obvious presence of the Holy Spirit, the weight of surrender began to grow. With each step, surrender and the thought of it became more and more a burden.

At that moment the most amazing transformation took place. I began to recall the joy, the exuberance and the sense of liberation that flowed out of the healing and release that I had experienced yesterday. It struck me in that moment that surrender was not a burden to carry. It is laying down the burden of feeling that I need to be the focal point of ministry, that I needed to be the catalyst for change and that the success and failure of the church was not dependent on wholly on ME!! (I already new this, too; I just wasn't sure I believed it). That was the burden that I needed to lay at the feet of Christ. That is what has been tripping me on my journey. That is the burden that I am called to lay down. That is what I must surrender. This surrender is what will enable me to take the next steps where Christ will lead me.


Shepherd of the Flock--Show me Your way.

Escape or Retreat

As I fly high above California's Central Valley on my way to the 7th week of the Academy for Spiritual Formation the question of escape or retreat is beginning to focus my awareness. I had noble intentions to post last week. I had a wonderful reflection on the book of Ezekiel, which I will probable post in the future. Life and death got in the way of those intentions. Monday began with the tragedy at Virginia Tech University. The week became increasingly impacted as each day passed. Pastoral care needs grew as parishoners entered the hospital and one returned home from the hospital with hospice care. By midweek it was already a full week, but it was not over. I caught wind of a threat at one of our local high schools. It was a graffiti threat invoking the memory of the Columbine High School shooting of 1999. The threat was eventually deemed a hoax, but the emotions were already raw given the events in Virginia and the growing reports of campus and workplace violence across the country.

The sermon that I had intended to preach about the transformational power of the resurrection was taking on new and very real dimensions. Bearing witness to the power of the resurrection to continue to transform lives was becoming more and more necessary as we became increasingly confronted with the pain, grief and brokenness that was expressing itself in violence across the country.

Thursday's early morning sleep was interrupted by a call to the home of a church member whose adult daughter had been murdered in her home by her estranged husband, who then took his own life. This crime was witnessed by the couple's three children. I have been concerned about family violence for a number of years. I have, in my previous congregation, held annual domestic violence awareness events to raise people's consciousness about the epidemic. I didn't realize how much I'd back burnered this ministry until I was confronted with the pain of this family. It became very difficult and much more real than it had ever been as I ministered to this family.
I have arrived in San Francisco now and am sitting in a Starbucks enjoying a relatively quiet moment in anticipation of the beginning of the week. As I feel myself begin to unspool from the week's events I'm working through the conflicted feelings of whether I'm "escaping" or "retreating". There is a significant part of me that could very easily run away from this. I think about the Bob Seger song, "Against the Wind" where he speaks these words that cry out from my heart today: "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." I could be content with keeping these tragedies, this kind of violence at arms length...someone else's family, someone else's congregation. I suppose that there is a certain amount of sanity and normalcy to a comment like this. But I also realize that that train has left the station. I do know now what I didn't know then. So I guess one could make the argument that escape is simply not possible.
Therefore, if escape is not possible what do I do with the idea of retreat? Retreat feels different. It isn't desertion. It isn't a permanent state of separation. It is not withdrawal with no thought of ever returning to the fray. As I begin this week my only thought is to take a deep breath. I want to slow down enough to breath in deeply the Spirit and the Spirit's power. I want to draw into my soul the Spirit's healing and wholeness. This is a time to rest a little, retool, resupply and reorient myself. One of the things that I know about myself is that I can very easily develop a bunker mentality. I sharpen my focus and narrow my field of vision in order to address a crisis. It happens quickly and almost imperceptibly but I have found it very difficult to break out of it without some kind of retreat.

Last week was a seminal week in my life and my ministry. It shook me in a lot of ways. By the grace of God, I have an opportunity this week. I have a retreat laid out before me and I pray that I might experience the grace that I will need to grow into this new experience. This is not simply a prayer for myself. It is a prayer for my church family. It is a prayer for all whose lives have been touched and forever altered by violence. It is a prayer for all those who are searching for a new way through.

Is Monastic Community Possible?

This may seem like an odd question in the early 21^st Century. In our highly individualist culture this may seem an inappropriate question. The prospect of living in cloistered communities, under order, taking spartan vows and living in poverty may seem completely out of step with post-modern culture; however, I believe that there are important lessons about the modern church that we can learn by taking a fresh look at monastic life.

There has been a lot of evidence in the media about a growing trend toward narcissism in the society at large. I’ve seen emerging evidence of a “me” culture and the obsessive drive toward personal satisfaction. From user defined content on the internet to a consumer driven culture that packages patriotism with material consumption we are being sold on the notion that we owe it to ourselves to satisfy every desire. This culture is creeping into the church. I’ve seen a creeping trend toward a satisfaction-based commitment to the church. What I mean is this: As long as a person is satisfied with what they are getting from the church everything is fine. When something happens to destabilize that satisfaction some will leave in search of a church that will satisfy their needs. The Church of Jesus Christ, the Body of Christ, is not built on a satisfaction-based model. The church is fashioned by the work of the Holy Spirit and through our unparalleled commitment to Jesus we come into alignment with that Body that exists independently of us.

In the last few weeks I’ve been reading through the monastic rule of Benedict of Nursia. This monastic rule has established a community of faith that has existed for more than 1500 years. This rule raises commitment to Christ to be the first and unequaled commitment. No other human want or commitment can compete with this commitment to Christ. This is an austere path to community, but given the current trend in our culture, there may be something to be said for this sort of commitment. While Benedict’s call to physically live in community may not be part of Christian’s calling, we can live in the spirit of that kind of radical commitment to Christ in which we put our commitment to Christ and the community above our own wants.

As I’ve read the Benedictine Rule, I’ve been confronted with some of my own shadow side. As I’ve lamented the emerging satisfaction-based commitment to the church, I’ve realized that the ego-centric roots of a consumer culture church have been present in my own life. I’ve labored with my own sense of entitlement about what the church should be like. I’ve come to the difficult realization that simply because I am the Senior Pastor I’m no more entitled than anyone else to have my wants satisfied. Since I have no intention of leaving and I can’t expect all of my wants to be satisfied, I’m forced to come up with a middle way. I’ve known for a while that the church wasn’t about me and my ego but this represents a much deeper learning of that truth. It’s been relatively easy to not invest my ego in the church when things were going fairly well. It has been in times of conflict that I realized I haven’t completely taken my ego out of the equation.

Through reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer and reflecting on my own frustrations and anxieties I’ve come to understand more completely that the Church, the Body of Christ, exists independently of us. The Church exists before us and it is not our creation. We don’t shape the church. The Church was created through the work of the Holy Spirit as the means by which God calls us out of our sin into a life of faith. Through the Baptismal Covenant we become initiated into the community that existed before us. It is pure hubris to expect the church to conform to our wishes. It is our faithful work to bend our wishes and wants to the community through our singular commitment to Christ…even for pastors this holds true. I can not expect everyone to be on their best behavior and to fly in formation all the time.

Pressing on Through the Desert

Perseverance is a critical Christian value. We are reminded by Paul to persevere through the difficult times of our life when we face illness, brokenness and adversity of any sort. Paul reminds us of the powerful words of grace that inspire strength in tribulation. I've been thinking about perseverance in relation to the spiritual journey and realizing the importance of Philippians 3 where Paul encourages us to press ahead and to strain toward the goal of knowing Christ more completely.

I'm writing this posting from a mountaintop in Joshua Tree National Park. I have a beautiful view toward the community of Twentynine Palms, CA and the pristine desert valley that stretches toward the horizon before me. It is a gorgeous day and I see this as a moment of grace.

It was no easy task to get here. It required hiking through sandy washes, over rock strewn hillsides and up countless hillside switchbacks. In 90+ degree heat it was a chore to get here. All along the trail I continued to meditate on Paul's encouragement to the church to press ahead, to strain forward to knowing Christ more completely. I felt those words as encouragement on the trail. This is the first time I've ever hiked this trail, so I didn't know where I would end up, but I had the expectation that it would be excellent and that the destination would make the strain of the journey worthwhile.

Pressing ahead, straining toward the prize of knowing Christ more completely, even through the desert, is a vital practice in the spiritual life. The desert has a life and vitality of its own. Perhaps it is more barren than we might be comfortable with, but if we are willing to look beyond the surface of the seemingly barren places on our journey, we will find life and grace in unexpected places. While trekking through the arid and desert regions of my life isn't a trip I'd want to take with great frequency, I suppose God is showing me that the desert is not something to be feared or disdained.

A Normal Day

With all of the movement and changes in my life and spirit in the last few weeks I was beginning to lose the sense of God's presence in the ordinary. The tectonic movements in my faith and self-understanding have been so large that normal, everyday days were feeling a bit dry. I suppose that this is predictable if only by comparison. I have experienced so much healing in my life and spirit that my sense of renewal is off the chart. The shadow side of the feeling of liberation with which I've been blessed is that I've found it very easy to avoid having my feet on the ground.

This week I've found the sustaining grace of God in the everyday, not in the loftiness of ecstatic experience but with my feet firmly planted on the ground. The grace in this is that it is changing my view from the street level. Even as I write this posting I've been confronted with the reality of the messiness of sin and the human condition in my work and ministry. Standing in the midst of the mire even today, I’ve had the assurance of the Spirit which has served to remind me that the transformational power of the Spirit operates at eye level as well as in the clouds.

As I reflect on my journey of faith I'm experiencing again the truth that the healing, transforming and empowering grace of God is a companion on every step of my journey. Whether God leads my journey along the heights, above the clouds, or through the mire and muck of the world I am called to be rooted in the reality of the constancy of God’s transforming work unleashed within me and in the world around me.

Coming to Grips with God’s Timing

Change and growth are an inevitable part of our faith journey. As we move through our life, and hopefully move closer to God in the process, there is an amazingly intricate dance that we do with God. There is no doubt that God has a purpose for our life. There are things that we are created to accomplish. There are certain lessons that we need to learn to accomplish them. There are hurts that need to be healed and there are experiences that have to be overcome. At the same time, God will not run roughshod over our free will. God’s purpose for our life doesn’t negate our free will. The result is that our life, our growth in grace and faith and our faithful and effective service aren’t likely to follow a seamless trajectory; hence the image of the dance.

The challenge for our perception is that we don’t always learn things, get the healing or overcome previous experience in a logical order. In these past several months of near vertical learning curve I’ve had experiences of growth in which I’ve asked the hypothetical question: “Why didn’t I learn this before?” or, “Why am I only learning this now?” It didn’t take long before I came to grips with the truth that for one reason or another, I simply wasn’t ready…small consolation, but I’m learning to deal with it.

After the learning that I experienced two weeks ago with regard to my family of origin issues (a story dealt with in my previous posting) and particularly the healing that came as a result of it, I never articulated it fully, but the question of why I was only learning these things about my life and family now lingered just below the surface. While I wasn’t actively seeking the answer, God offered me a gift. This is my journal entry from the very next day. While it won’t be customary to share my journal with the world, I share these two entries (my previous posting and now this one) because I wanted to share the immediacy of the experience. Both of these entries were written while in the throws of what for me were profound experiences of grace.

February 15, 2007

I thought that today would be a pretty mellow day. Yesterday was so eventful, so inspiring, so cathartic and so exhausting. It felt like the first truly healthy day that I had ever lived. It was the first day that I felt free of the oppressive influence of my dad. It scared the crap out of me to feel so vulnerable, but I could feel the presence of God sustaining me.

Then comes this morning’s input session and a brief consideration of the topic of Wesleyan Spirituality. As I read and heard the familiar words of Wesley’s inspiration, I could feel the Spirit’s movement and power stir deep within my soul and my experience. I began to imagine a road stretched out before me. The truths that my practice and belief have taught me have given me a framework and have been a means of God’s sustaining grace. The came the question that drew me into silence: who are you indebted to?

I began to think of all the people that have taught me, supported me, sustained me and guided me on the path, even to this day. I reflected on the fruit that, by God’s grace alone, my life and ministry have born. I lamented the ways that my life and ministry were compromised by the narcissism that I engaged in. I began to imagine the choking off of possibilities by the fear, the approval seeking and the move toward unhealthy self-protection. Into this awareness the Spirit thrust the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. There was an immediate, physiological response that was profound. It took my breath away! I realized that yesterday was harvest time. The weeds that were sown in my earliest days and could not be removed without doing damage to the plant could now be safely pulled and thrown into the fire! This image was powerful and altered my perception, but for several minutes I remained out of breath. I wasn’t scared, per se, but it did have my attention. When I reached the destination where I had intended to write and reflect, a hymn came to me…"Breathe of my breath of God, fill me with life anew. That I may love what thou wouldst love and do what thou wouldst do.” Indeed, grace is my constant companion…a dept that God freely carries in order for me to be the person that God created me to be. My breath was restored. My life is restored.

A Fresh Look at My Journey

My postings have been pretty sparse in recent months. Three months ago, during Week 5 of my Academy experience I was confronted with a truth about myself and my family that shook me to the core. For years I knew that my family was dysfunctional and that the bulk of the dysfunction orbited my dad. I had made assumptions about why my dad lived and related the way he did, but three months ago those assumptions came crashing down.

With the help of a trusted friend who is a therapist, I was able to recognize that my dad presents the classic behavior of a serious personality disorder. As I read more about the disorder, learned that it was largely volitional and looked more closely at the impact that being brought up in that environment had on me I became increasingly angry. I was angry at my dad and I was angry with myself. I saw significant chunks of my life, my relationships and my ministry adversely impacted by my choices and fears that were shaped by the influence of my dad and his disorder.

I was hurting in ways that I had never hurt before. I knew that I needed to be healed. Through my experiences in the Academy I could sense God at work bringing that healing. I had expectations of what I wanted it to be. As I shared my expectations of God's healing with a trusted colleague and friend, little did I know that by morning's end it would all change. The following is my journal entry from that life-changing morning.

“I had hoped for and prayed for an experience of healing that would provide me with a safe place to stand. As I have opened myself to grace I was still setting terms. I could sense that God was going to do a new thing in me this week. I hoped it would be something that would help me get over the anger that I still harbor toward Dad. I hoped I could learn forgiveness of self for the ways that I still act out of his example and influence. I was looking for a safe place to stand so that I could do battle with the demons of my past that are still bound to pop up from time to time. Then came the question: ‘Where have you experienced grace?’

The grace came when I realized that God did not fulfill my hope…but God did answer my prayer. I was looking for a quick resolution for something that developed in a lifetime. I suppose, at least subconsciously, I was looking to avoid the hard work of healing and transformation. In the end, I was looking to be set free from the pattern of avoidance that perpetuated the problem from which I needed to be healed. OUCH! Thanks God!!

Healing is not a place to stand that provides an advantageous battle ground. The answer to my prayer is the acceptance that the healing I seek is part of my lifetime journey of faith. It is a journey in which grace is my constant companion. It is a journey taken with a community of caring and accountability. It is a journey of vulnerability during which I won’t be able to count on having the most advantageous ground to fight from when the demons come. Therefore it is fundamentally a journey of trust. This is a journey I can take, not because of any particular ability that I possess. I take this journey without the benefit of a map. I take this journey with no pretense of leadership or control. I take this journey willing to take God’s hand and be led.”

Putting Down Roots

In worship a couple of weeks ago I spoke of prayer as a way of putting down roots into God wherever we happen to be. I used the illustration of a Banyan tree to make the point. In particular, I had in mind the Banyan tree that has stood on the grounds of the Old Courthouse of Lahaina on the island of Maui. This is an amazing tree! Planted in 1873 the tree now covers nearly 2/3 of an acre. Needless to say it is a sight to behold. The pictures included in this posting were taken when I visited in 2005.

This Banyan tree illustrates a truth about prayer that has taken hold in my life and faith. As this tree continues to spread out covering so much ground the branches end up further and further away from the roots. To overcome this distance, presumably, the tree will drop roots down from the branches that seek out the nourishment of the ground below. When the roots reach the ground and take hold in the life giving soil they solidify and thicken they become not only sources of nourishment but also strong support for the ever expanding tree.

In my life of prayer there is great value to this image. If my life was to cover but a little area, like most coniferous or deciduous trees I would remain close enough to my roots so as to keep nourishment close. However, the tree of my life is anything but modest in scope. I think the image of the Banyan tree speaks so deeply to my experience because like it, my life seems to take off with abandon in every direction. I also realize that I need all the support that I can get as I move farther and farther from my root, the core of my being. Continuing to put down roots for nourishment and support as my life ventures out in every direction is not simply essential. I’ve come to discover that deep and vibrant prayer, sinking down roots into the nourishment of God’s grace and presence, is not just vital. It is the difference between life and death.

Each day I grow deeper into this pattern of prayer that is more than simply something I do, I learn that it is the grace that I receive from God in return that enables me to reach out, live and grow in faith.