Greetings from Waveland, Mississippi

After much anticipation I’ve arrived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived, but I was still shocked at the extent to which the devastation is still evident. I had the good fortune of getting a small tour as we travelled west from the Gulfport/Biloxi Airport to Waveland. We passed through the communities of Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis and Waveland on our way to United Methodist Camp Gulfside located right on the Gulf of Mexico. My guide was a relief worker assigned to supervisor one of the other UM relief sites. He has been here long enough to get the lay of the land and to know some of the stories. As we drove along the coast the 25 miles from the airport to our final destination I was blown away by the stories of wind and water.

Three years later the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina is still a study of contrasts. Brand new houses and signs of life are interspersed with broken and deformed trees, empty foundations, driveways that go nowhere and orphaned stilts that were designed to raise a house high enough to avoid the storm surge of a hurricane. Old plantation homes, small cottages, modest family homes, houses of worship, businesses, municipal buildings, bridges, rail lines, sewers, water, gas and electricity, none were strong enough to withstand the force of the wind and water that came ashore with the eye of the storm right at the place where I write this post from. Nearly three years post-Katrina this area is coming back to life with the help of countless volunteers and yet there are still tens of thousands of homes in this region that are not even touched. The difference between new homes and empty slabs is the common story in our world…the folks with means or insurance are clawing their way back. The ones without are living in FEMA trailers and “Katrina Cottages” navigating the maze of governmental and parochial assistance to re-establish their homes.

Another contrast is this place…Camp Gulfside. This 65 acre parcel has been owned and operated as a Gulf-front camp and retreat center for 80 some years. On this parcel, pre-Katrina, there were 14 buildings that serviced the camp. Post-Katrina, after 25 feet of wind driven water, that number dropped to ZERO. I write to you from a building donated by the military. The contrast is fueled by the history of this place. For forty years of this camp’s existence it was the only place in this part of the Gulf Coast that residents of African descent could freely come and enjoy the soft white sand and warm gulf waters. From its inception in the 1920’s through the civil rights era this camp was an oasis, it was a way-station that guarded the dignity of persons in Christ’s name.

Again, even in its devastated condition, Camp Gulfside is an oasis. It is a place where thousands of volunteers have passed through and rested in the work of bringing a tangible example of Christ’s love to a broken and battered community. We were reminded of why we are here as we sat at orientation this evening. The question was asked “what is the difference between our mission and our task?” The true distinction, given by one of my fellow volunteers is this…Our task is the work on the houses. Our mission is to live out and embody the love of God that we have known in Christ…a love that brings healing and hope in the midst of death and devastation. And so it begins for us.

Come Lord Jesus, Come.

From Camp Gulfside, Mississippi, May 4, 2008, 10:49 pm.

Service as a Spiritual Discipline

In the eight months since I completed the Two Year Academy I've had a growing understanding of service as a Spiritual Discipline. This is an important distinction for the church to make. In some traditions service is an obligation that the community carries as a burden. In other traditions, service is a metric by which that community measures it’s self. Still other traditions engage in service with only the vaguest notion that somewhere in Scripture Jesus expects us to do good things for other people. Make no mistake, when the hungry are fed, the naked clothed and compassion made tangible these are all Kingdom tasks.

However, when service is rooted only in a temporal reality, that is, when our motivation for doing ministry is only about the need that is immediately in front of us, we miss an important, longer view of the Kingdom of God. The deeper question of what drives us into these Kingdom acts is a vital question for Christian spirituality. Are we simply about doing an ethical approximation of what Jesus is reported to have done in the Gospels? Approaching service as a spiritual discipline has helped me distinguish this difference.

This wasn’t an overnight change for me. In fact it happened over many years as I wrestled with the nature of Christian service, the call to discipleship and a yearning for a deeper relationship with God. Since I began my ministry in the local church, I’ve been fairly certain that the work of Christian ministry was more than just going through the motions of “doing church”. I’ve known that there was a “being” component to this work that was rooted deeply within a relationship with Christ. Over the years I think I’ve grown in my ability to bear witness to that distinction and to draw people more deeply into a way of serving that was more than rote and more than doing something simply because I asked them. There was still something missing. There was a connective piece that I couldn’t quite get my hands on.

I realize now that my conversations, my preaching, my teaching and my leading were more academic than experiential. I knew that I was on the right track. But because I lacked the experience of service as a spiritual discipline, it was difficult to lead others there. A couple of months ago I could feel a shift in my spirituality. Through the time of the Academy, much of my focus was internal. My disciplines were very inwardly focused. A couple of months ago I could feel the focus shift. I began to see ways, open doorways through which I could go into the world and express in tangible ways the grace that I had experienced in my inward journey of spiritual formation. I began to experience what I’d been saying and preaching for some years…that serving others as Christ served is not simply the matter of the right task list. To serve as Christ served is rooted in deep and life giving relationships…first with God and then with others. The intimacy of His relationship with God the Father and the intimacy of His relationship with the disciples and those whom he served was the pathway of effectiveness.

The lesson for me is that the metric for faithful discipleship is not the quantity of tasks that we are able to check off at the end of the day. Rather, faithful service is measured by the quality of all of our relationships and that they are in effect means of God’s grace poured out in the world. I know that my ability to serve in this way begins with the time I offer to God…to know God…to hear God…to simply sit in silence with God. If I’m not engaged with God in this way, I’m just “doing church.”

Reflection Rather Than Reaction

We live in a culture in which Christian discipleship is becoming increasingly difficult. We are treated as consumers whose value is assessed in what we are able to buy. We are marketed to based on age, gender, ethnicity and spending power. We are given very little credit in this culture as rational, thinking, reflecting people. In fact, in the marketing game, the people doing the marketing don’t want us to think; they only want us to react. We are to go on impulse. Don’t think about whether or not you really need a given consumer item…if you want it, buy it.

This philosophy runs across the board. From consumer items to politics we are marketed to not because we have something substantive to add but because we have something that someone else wants…a dollar or a vote. OK…I know that this sounds pretty cynical. I suppose to a certain extent it is. However, I want to elevate the discussion. Each one of us is more, far more, than our spending power, our demographic category or our party affiliation. Each one of us has a life that is a sacred gift from a Creator who loves and values each person. Our life has meaning far beyond our utility. Each one of us is an instrument of grace through whom God works to reveal God’s love, grace and purpose. Through our relationship with Christ we are able to see that purpose and engage that purpose in meaningful ways as we work with Christ to reveal God’s reign in our midst.

To engage this purpose we are called to do more with our life than react to the whims and the fancies of a culture that would strip us of our humanity if we would let it. We are called to a life of faith that is constantly growing and being shaped by the outpouring of God’s grace. This life is a reflective life. For centuries, Christians have engaged in reflective lives where we look at our life in terms of how and where we see God at work. St. Ignatius of Loyola practiced what is known as the Examen. At the end of his day he engaged in a reflection of all that had happened in that day through the eyes of faith and an understanding of how God was at work and where God was present. I’ve come to know the Examen as very valuable discipline in my life. I have not always followed the full pattern of the Ignatian rule, but even a basic pattern of coming to the end of the day and reflecting on the grace of God that I’ve experienced continues to draw me closer to God’s heart. Generally, I combine this reflection with journaling as a way of having a conversation with myself and with God. The times in my life in which I have engaged in this practice more intentionally are the times when I have felt less reactive in my life and more proactive. That is who we are called to be in Christ…proactive to work for and reveal God’s reign through Christ in all that we do.

In a culture where we are expected only to react, the Examen is counter culture. It is a practice of faith that draws us beyond our basest instincts into a life of openness and gratitude where we become more and more able to discern the movement, direction and call of Christ as he travels in our world and bids us to follow. The more effectively we discern God’s movement in our everyday life, the more we understand who we are and who Christ calls us to be. The Examen gives a disciple the opportunity to name the things for which he/she is thankful in the day. It is an opportunity to name the challenges to faith and practicing Christ’s presence that exist in a given day. It is a day to celebrate one of the greatest gifts that God gives us…to recognize that and where God’s grace is poured out. It is the opportunity to encounter the movement of God’s love in ways that we might miss if we spend our day simply reacting to the stimulus of the world.

When we stop at the end of our day, and even periodically during our day, we have the opportunity to see the great wealth and even the unexpected ways that God is present. The more we exercise this vision, the better we see. The better we see, the more we recognize God. The more we recognize God, the stronger our witness to God and the more effectively we reveal the Kingdom.

Hospitality as a Spiritual Discipline

The Walk to Emmaus story in the 24^th Chapter of Luke’s Gospel is an amazingly rich story for growth in spiritual formation. The story of Cleopas and his unnamed companion holds a mirror up to us in our walk of faith and our efforts to make sense of the Christian faith story. Like Cleopas, we know the elements of the story of Easter and the birth, life and death of Jesus. We know the story, but seeing Christ…having a life giving and energizing encounter with the risen Christ is something that seems fleeting if not altogether elusive. The Walk to Emmaus story teaches us volumes how we can see Christ in the world and in our life.

The nuts and bolts of information weren’t enough for Cleopas and his friend. Even after the hidden Christ revealed more and more nuanced information than they had before, it still wasn’t enough to open their eyes to the Christ who stood before them. It wasn’t enough to dispel the clouds of confusion that continued to swirl around them. At the end of the day (literally as well as figuratively) it took as simple, routine act of hospitality to clear away the fog. They engaged in what was expected of them…welcoming into their home a stranger. They opened their life and their home to the hidden Christ. At the invitation, Jesus entered into their life and then gave them a gift. In an act of breaking bread at the table, in response to their invitation, the risen Christ revealed Himself to Cleopas and his friend. When they saw him they believed what they had seen and heard and then recognized how Christ had really been present with them all along.

The simple act of hospitality was the key that unlocked their awareness. Our encounter with the risen Christ is not driven by what we know, or what we think we know. We see the risen Christ when in spite of what we know, don’t know or think we know, we are willing to home our heart to him. This opening of our self and our life is an act of welcome. It is an act of hospitality. Service is one form of the act of hospitality. When in Matthew’s Gospel we hear Jesus remind his disciples that when they care for the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick and the outcast they care for him, the road to seeing Christ could not be any clearer for us. We find Christ in the face of those we reach out to.

The interesting and important piece of this form of hospitality is that it is not done grudgingly. It is not done with an air of superiority. It is not done in the spirit of something being done unto another. Hospitality as service…hospitality as a spiritual discipline is accomplished when one person recognizes the humanity of another, recognizes a need and then serves that need with no thought of reward or return. This becomes the quintessential human relationship. This is one person walking the road with another out of mutual love and support. This is what Jesus does on the road to Emmaus. This is what Cleopas and his friend do for Jesus. This is what Jesus does when he blesses the meal he is offered. This was how Jesus was revealed.

When we want to see Jesus today in our life and world the road is pretty clear; make room for a brother or sister you encounter on the path. Be open to not only what you can do for them, but what blessing of grace you might receive from them. When we share with one another in this spirit of love, openness and welcome, Christ is present.

Practicing Resurrection

As I was preparing for my day, I was struck with an interesting concept for spiritual formation and discipleship. It’s not likely new in the grand scheme of discipleship…in fact it may not even be new to me. What I do know is that it struck a particularly strong chord with me today. So the question is, what would it look like to practice resurrection as a spiritual discipline or discipleship practice?

As I bask in the afterglow of an especially meaningful Easter, resurrection as a present reality is more tangible to me now than at any time I can remember. From a theological perspective, I’ve known resurrection as both an after death reality and a here and now reality. Resurrection isn’t simply a hope that is held in trust for us until we die, it is a power and a hope we draw from every day of our life of faith. With all of the challenges that I’ve been through this past year and the healing that I’ve experienced, the promise of new life is more tangible for me. Head knowledge has become heart knowledge. The heart knowledge has tapped a well spring of strength, courage and vision that had largely been buried or, at the very least, obscured by the stuff that still cluttered my life. The key to practicing resurrection as a spiritual discipline is to live out of this heart knowledge, out of the lived experience of God’s grace.

So, begin where you are. Where have you experienced healing in body or in spirit? Remember a time when you “woke up” out of the haze of conflict or trial and you saw the world around you differently. Remember one of those “a-ha” moments when there was new insight or new awareness of God’s presence in your life. Reach back into your experience and remember one of those times. What was it like? What went through your heart? Have you got that time, even if it is only a moment (and a fleeting one at that)? The discipline of practicing resurrection is to continue to live in the power of that experience. Make no mistake, this is not about freezing time and arresting the clock. Practicing resurrection is about creating more and more space in our life for that power (and it is Spirit power) to work at healing, transforming, refining and clarifying our life, our practice and our witness. Practicing resurrection is about an active life of prayer, journaling and reflection. It is about allowing the Spirit, in concert with our disciplines, to create more and more space in our life to experience that power at greater breadth and greater depth.

Imagine it this way…you’re standing in the middle of a dirty floor with a broom. You look down and you realize that you’re standing on the only clean place on the floor. Yet you don’t concentrate on how dirty the rest of the floor is, you realize you’re standing in a clean place and it gives you joy and peace to be in that place. Then you begin to realize that by using the broom, you can expand that clean area a piece at a time. Bit by bit, the floor becomes clean, your joy increases because there is more and more room that is tidy and ordered.

Practicing resurrection is an intentional discipline of living into the hope we find, whenever we find it and wherever we find it. If it is fleeting, we don’t lament what isn’t there, we revel in the experience we’ve been given and open our self to new and deeper experiences of the Spirit. The more we learn to practice this life of hope and power, the more we realize that this is the real world. This life of resurrection is the life that God intends for all of us through the grace in Christ. We need not be mired in the stuff of this world. It is fleeting, finite and base. Resurrection is life, beauty and promise.

Relating to the Disciples

I suppose I never really thought about it before…my relationship with the first disciples. I’ve always tried to grow in my understanding of their witness to Christ and the context of their faith within the time that they lived. I never really gave much thought to relating to them personally, as fellow pilgrims on the journey (albeit somewhat time removed). This week, though, as I prepare for Easter, I’m thinking more about my relationship with the disciples.

With 2,000 years of history, witness, theology, commentary and historical criticism of the Gospels its easy to caricature the disciples…Peter is so dense…James and John (the sons of Zebedee) are so power hungry…Judas is so self-centered. We cast these aspersions at people who ought to know better; after all they knew Jesus personally. They walked with Jesus. They ate with Jesus. They witnessed Jesus’ miracles. They heard Jesus’ teaching unfiltered. They saw the empty tomb. They saw the risen Christ. After all of this, how could they be so flawed? The simple answer to that question is they are human; every bit as human as we are. Two thousand years from now, it’s very likely that the church will offer the same critique of our faithfulness. “After all that witness, how could they (we) be so dense.”

Our journey of faith is in fact very little different from that of the disciples. When confronted with the presence of Jesus (for us, in the Gospels and in the world) we are forced to make sense of what we see. The Holy Spirit helps us get a handle on our experience of the risen Christ, but it has to go far beyond the simple cognitive process. This week is Easter, so the obvious question should have something to do with the empty tomb. In an enlightenment mentality it would be logical to frame the question thus: What does the empty tomb mean? Many trees have given their lives over the millennia to provide the medium to answer that question. We can talk about salvation, eternal life, justifying grace and regeneration, but that doesn’t get at the crux of the Gospel witness and how Jesus interacts with the disciples in these post-resurrection experiences.

The question is better framed: What does the empty tomb mean to me? To put it another way, how will my acknowledgment that the tomb is empty shape my relationship with Jesus, with God and with me? How will the fact that the tomb is empty shape my work as a Christian disciple? How will it shape my witness in the world? How will it focus me around whom and how I serve? These were the questions that were upper most in Jesus’ teaching on that morning. These were the things that the disciples were most interested in. They didn’t have the time, the context and they certainly didn’t have the words to make sense of such an unprecedented event. It would take centuries to come to anything that resembled a working theological understanding of Easter, let alone the life and death of Jesus. Jesus didn’t want them to wait around until they had the understanding. Jesus wanted them to get to work right away. Work with what you know, build understanding from what you experience through the power of the Holy Spirit. Invite people to take the journey with you and learn of Christ not through the wisdom of our words but through the life giving love of Christ that pours forth from our hearts.

This makes so much more sense to me. Even with two advanced degrees and nearly twenty years in the church, I’m still learning new theological truths (seemingly daily). My ministry doesn’t stop because the understanding is incomplete. I follow the well worn path of those who walked beside Jesus…I share Christ’s love and teaching with the best understanding I can muster, live the love I’ve been given with as much integrity as I can, bear witness with as much authenticity as I can and let the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Is it really that simple?

Reclaiming Holy Ground

Last week I experienced the profound blessing of reuniting with my covenant group from the Two Year Academy. We had been planning this event since our last formal week together last August. It was an event that we had all anticipated. It was a blessed time of reconnecting and practicing the spiritual discipline of fellowship. As it turns out I needed that time and space more than I imagined. Returning to the Mercy Center was like returning to the spiritual womb. As I walked through the gates, I new that I was walking on holy ground. It was a time of healing that put me back on the path of intentional spiritual formation. The following an entry from my journal that speaks of the healing.

February 9, 2008 Mercy Center

It has been far too long. In so many ways I have been absent from this level of openness to God. Through a season of great turmoil, truly a wilderness experience, I have emerged…a little more scarred, a little more worn, a little wiser and certainly more blessed. I am willing to more deeply embrace my need for God’s grace. I am more willing to come to terms with my own sin, brokenness and insecurity. In this vulnerability I am much more able to see and understand God’s gifts to me. The freely given, unmerited reality of God’s grace is a much deeper experience. I also see more clearly that gratitude is the proper first response.

Living gratefully can’t be quantified merely by a series of prescribed tasks. The whole of gratitude is vastly greater than the sum of its parts. True gratitude is practiced when I am willing to trust God completely even though there are things I’d wish to hide, even through I have questions, even thought there is much that is yet to be understood. True gratitude is engaged when I open myself to God’s touch to the very core of my being…even to that place of deep hurt that I’ve covered out of both ignorance and self-preservation. The fullest expression of gratitude for this gift of God’s grace doesn’t end with what happens inside of me and inside of my experience. The fullest expression of this gratitude comes when I live this gift incarnationally, even sacramentally, as I journey this path.

In my relationship with Christ I find the key, the gateway to understanding this mystery of healing and redemption more clearly. Through Christ’s life, death and resurrection, this path takes shape before me. The lesson today is an advanced lesson in grace. I’ve always know that this path, this life of gratitude is an everyday reality and an everyday practice. I’m not sure I could always articulate an adequate answer as to why. Perhaps I had not reached a full enough awareness of my own vulnerability and need. Perhaps I was so ashamed or afraid of my vulnerability that I was fearful of coming to God with the radical openness that I learned through the Academy. Perhaps there was enough of me that figured I could do this on my own. Today, this myth has been shattered like so many other myths that have fallen in my life in the past few months. Today there is emerging a deeper peace that comes with this myth being dispelled. Whatever the reasons for this recent absence for a deep and radical openness practiced in a disciplined spiritual life (and the reasons are by no means adequate excuses), the bottom line is that I didn’t share this struggle with God. In spite of trying to hide this from God, I do know (and am still blown away by the fact) that God remained close by me…as close as my next breath.

I now know God’s redeeming and transforming love more deeply in that I have experienced how mercifully and compassionately God cares for my deepest hurts, my deepest vulnerabilities and even my most persistent sins. I know now that God’s grace is sufficient for my deepest need. I can trust God’s love completely in that need and I can seek God’s presence without fear anytime any place and with any need.

What has been hope is now experience through my deepening relationship with Christ’s incarnational presence that dwells in me through faith. Now I can be a fuller expression of that grace through my grateful response in creation.

Closer Than You Think

I finally have something that resembles a “normal” week (assuming that normalcy and servant ministry have any correlation). The personal issues that I dealt with before Christmas were complicated by bouts of the flu and bronchitis since. I’ve managed to muddle through and get the bare necessities done, but there has been little energy to do more. Now, before you think I’m looking for someone to throw me a pity party, there is a point to this.

I’m sorry to say that my devotional life was one of the casualties of the illness. Maybe it’s just me, but when I’m sick, I generally don’t do a thing. I turn into a regular lump. I do pray, but it bears very little resemblance to the discipline I try to keep at other times. As I’ve emerged from this self imposed cave and have gotten more focused on my spiritual disciplines and rule of life I’ve discovered an incredible gift of grace.

In times past when I’ve had these lapses in discipline, getting back into the discipline was something of a chore. There were many times when I felt like I was starting over. It was discouraging to say the least. This time, however, as I have rekindled my disciplines I discovered that God was closer than I thought! It didn’t feel like I was starting over. It didn’t feel like I had some great distance to travel to “get back to where I had been.” In fact, it felt a lot more like I’d never left, like there had been no lapse. I know that this sense is not that God’s geography was somehow different; I knew that it was a matter of my awareness.

Over the course of many weeks and months, as I have sought God’s presence in a more disciplined and intimate way, I have known God’s transforming grace with a completeness and depth that I had previously unknown. I feel and sense God’s presence closer now than at any other time in my life. I’m different for the encounter. What I learn from this experience is that attention to spiritual disciplines will ebb and flow with the tides in my life. I won’t always be as disciplined as I’d like to be. But over a long haul, but because of how God has drawn me deeper and deeper into God’s own presence those momentary lapses will be just that. The gift of intimacy that has so transformed me will keep me close to God through all the distractions.

Another Important Discovery

In the last month, I’ve been taught a valuable lesson about openness and vulnerability in life, faith and ministry. To be open to the movement of God’s Spirit, to be open to others in life and ministry and to be open to growth in grace is a lot like being pregnant…you either are or you aren’t. From the day that I answered Christ’s claim on me to pursue ordination, I’ve prided myself on the sense of openness and vulnerability that made that pursuit possible. Along the way there have been countless experiences through which God has shaken the chaff of pride free from that vulnerability. The pitfall of pride became relatively easy to spot and repent of and as a consequence I feel like I’ve learned that I am still in the process of becoming truly open to the movement of grace. However, in the last month I’ve come to discover that pride is not the only pitfall on the path to openness and vulnerability to grace.

Over the past month I’ve become increasingly aware how large of a pitfall woundedness can be to the deeper movement of grace and openness to God’s purpose. Even though, I’ve never been one to shy away from emotion and the willingness to be open to showing my pain and fear to others there has always been a limit to how much I would show. I’ve been very selective in how I would show my weakness. As I’ve sorted through the woundedness that was wrapped up in the toxic relationship with my father, I’ve realized the imprint on my life of his inability and unwillingness to be confronted with anything that could be construed as personal failure or rejection. I’ve found that I was more than willing to empathize with the pain of illness, loss, death and the like; however, if the vulnerability in any way exposed the possibility of a poor personal reflection, failure or rejection I would do anything I could to insulate myself from it.

The all out effort to insulate myself from failure and rejection put up huge obstacles to God’s healing and redeeming grace. This insulation work took me from the heart of the Gospel and the work of Christian discipleship. For any Christian disciple the path of discipleship and true openness to the movement of grace means making one’s self open to failings and sin. It requires a fundamental openness to personal rejection and failure. Jesus himself was radically open to people’s perceptions of him as a failure as many of those who shouted “Hosanna!” on Sunday were likely shouting “Crucify Him!” on Friday because he had somehow failed their expectations.

To be truly vulnerable is to trust in God’s grace. To be open to the movement of the Spirit even in our brokenness and woundedness is to trust in the refiner’s fire. To be vulnerable to one’s self and to be vulnerable to God enables us to be vulnerable to others. We are able to enter into deep relationships that bind us together in grace and ministry. Together we trust God and one another and in that trust we become powerful instruments of grace in the revealing of God’s reign of love in all of creation. For all of us…it is a work in progress.

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.