a quick thought

A Christian writer named Eugene Peterson holds to a belief that the act of worship is essential to people. That we are made for it and our lost without it. That our focus cannot leave ourselves and that we our enslaved to to our feelings of shame without worship that invites us to look out and see God and realize how ridiculous it is to ever suppose that we could make ourselves okay to begin with. In this process we find that we have immense value in the very fact that we matter to this infinite and amazing God. We also recognize how much we need God and our illusions of self-sufficiency begin to fade away.

I am dependent on this process. Without I begin to see myself as far too important and far too much of a failure. I lose my ability to see God and to be astonished at who He is. The world becomes about me and I become very depressed indeed.

I think maybe this is why I am a Christian. Without worship my life spirals out of control. Worship is north on my compass (so I have never actually used a compass, but people who do seem to find it terribly important). I can only worship something that I truly believe to be greater than I can ever strive to be, which is why human heroes always fell short. This left God. A God who cares and a God who allows Himself to be accessible.

I think I am being called to get back to the simplicity of my younger faith. God is good. Worship is something that He deserves and brings me great satisfaction to do. Inviting others into this life is good is good for both parties.

This seems simple and to be honest is not a complete theology, but I think this is all I can truly cling to in this moment.

Worship is maybe the only truly free thing I do. Maybe that is why Eugene Peterson argues for its importance.

Thoughts?

my thoughts on brokenness

A couple of days ago I posed a question about why my church placed the most famous failures of Peter and Paul on their stained glass. Here are my thoughts a to why and what that means about the Christian faith.

First I considered that maybe the inclusion of the rooster and of the scales are an example of a society that loves to tear down its heroes. Think about it, we love the National Enquirer, more people know about John F. Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn Monroe than his civil rights bills, we love to see heroes fall. So maybe these windows are just an example of that morbid fascination with failure. Maybe the mistakes of these men make us feel better about ourselves. Maybe those who installed the glass found Peter and Paul easier to relate to than Jesus, with all of his being God and such.

I cannot deny this train of thought outright, it is too intriguing and has an element of truth in it. It does comfort me (as I am sure many others) that Peter and Paul were people and that there was no attempt to hide this by either the early church or my own church. What I do reject though, is the modern cynicism that revels in their failures as some attempt to justify myself. The failures of humans cannot be something voyeristically fascinating for a Christian. Peter and Paul cannot become ancient Brad Pitt's or Ricky Williams', they need to be our models. Try as we might, perfection is not something that we are going to stumble upon or cultivate with rigid discipline. Our mistakes stay with us, follow us, hound us and mock us. The answer to this dilemma that I often see in our culture is to revel in and celebrate these failures. If you struggle with lust the answer I hear is; "Great! It is your natural nature, don't deny yourself!", if you are liar, the response seems to be; "What is truth anyway?". I think the response to these thoughts are displayed in those windows, your mistakes to matter, those scars remain.

Of course this is not the only response we have to our failings. There are also those who take every mistake as evidence that they should never again try or never again step out. If we are a generation that is marked by being great justifiers, we are also a generation that feels profoundly guilty, that is essentially not able to believe our own bullshit. Deep down, everyone I know, Christian, Buddhist, Agnostic, atheist or other, is riddled with a profound sense of guilt. Whether our exterior is marked with our intense discipline, or if we wear our hair long and our tattoos proudly, we are all unified by our shame. Their is a seemingly universally unsettled nature within us that counts our failures and we are internally mocked by them.

Here is where I once again find hope in the glass. Peter was a coward. A man who was so bold that he stepped out onto the water with Jesus, yet was so fearful that he hid with shame his affiliation with Jesus from a slave girl. Had he allowed guilt to dismiss himself from service to the early church, then the church would've suffered a great leadership vacuum. Instead he excepted the grace offered to him by a resurrected Jesus and stepped with boldness as a leader. He was what Henri Nouwen would describe as a "wounded healer". A man who had a well-known and shameful past, but represented Jesus by living as a free man. He was not shackled to his failings, thus people saw Jesus in him. I like to think that fearful people were the ones most drawn to him. That rooster is a picture not only of the man that Peter was, but also the gospel truth that we can become more than slaves to ourselves, that there is hope for even the most broken among us.

I wonder what would be on my own stained glass. What failings of mine, past and present would be up there? I also wonder whether I have accepted Jesus' invitation to reject justifying my acts and to reject guilt. This freedom is the most counter-cultural invitation that has ever been offered. It is simply my prayer that I would accept it and begin to live.

Still in Madison

Still in Madison, and feeling a bit tired. I have an idea for a blog topic, but since I am too tired to write about it, I thought that I would just leave it as a question, then fill in my ideas tomorrow.

At my church we have some amazing stained glass. The Prodigal Son is depicted. So is Jesus. However, my favorite two windows are the one depicting Peter and Paul. Peter and Paul are the two most influential fathers of Christianity whose names aren't "Jesus". In these windows these two giants of faith look distinguished and wise. These are worthy depictions of two strong and heroic men. The actual pictures of them don't really interest me though, it is what else is on their windows. Peter has a rooster on his window, an illusion to his three denials of Jesus before the coming of morning. Paul has three scales (like that of a lizard) on his window, representing the scales that fell from his eyes when his Jesus caused blindness was healed.

Why? Why do these windows depict the most famous failing of these men? Why choose to display Peter's most cowardice moment? Why show Paul's spiritual blindness?

Why are those images so compelling?

Please respond.

ONS Day 2

So this is going to be another short blog. The problem is that they are keeping us quite busy here, so I am pretty wiped come bloggy time.

God is doing some really good stuff. For those of you in the know, I have had a long journey to this conference and going on staff in general. So much trust has been restored to me this week. I am falling in love with IV again.

I will elaborate more later. This is a good place and I glad to be here. I will try and give an update tomorrow.

Hopefully.

Madison, WI

I have arrived at Orientation for New Staff, here in Madison, WI. For those of you not familiar with InterVarsity speak, basically I am receiving my introductory training on staff work and fund development for the next week and a half. Should be fun. I have already met staff from around the country, which is pretty cool. My hotel is pretty swanky, and definitely more roomy than my tent or the back of the car.

I will write with more substance later, I have dinner coming up and I would like to turn my brain off for a little while.

Peace.

June 18th
Bismarck, ND

Sorry for the long gap in writing, I have one blog that didn't post and one on the hard drive that won't paste. Keep your eyes open for that one.

My impressions on my travels so far are like this:

• Wyoming is beautiful. Literally is one of the most awe-inspiring states I have ever visited.
  
• Montana is pretty in spots, but once you get east it gets pretty ugly.
• North Dakota is pretty much like Eastern Montana. Except for the Badlands. WOW. The Badlands should be required viewing for everyone, everywhere

Listened to a book on tape about Vince Lombardi. Amazing coach, amazing drive, personally terrifying to see the cost on a family when a man makes his work his mistress. I appreciate his heart and even his theology (he was appalled by self-focused thought and believed that the point of scripture was to see how we as a community of people are to relate to God. Ultimately this is why he loved team sports), but when he died it was his players, not his children who knew him best. Tragic.

Spiritual musings have been mostly focused on the role of criticism within Christianity. What do you do with your critical mind when you become a Christian? Are you supposed to turn it off in the name of "humility"? Can you ever call a fellow Christian wrong? How do you know when you should critically evaluate someone else's leadership and when you should just humbly receive their teaching? Is their a way to actually do both?

No answers yet. My gut tells me I still need to be critical and yet somehow remain teachable. The problem is I am usually a doormat when I am teachable and a pain in the ass when I am critical. Which I guess reminds me I need Jesus.

Hopefully deeper insights are coming.

I think that I am going to sign off for now, I am worried about this posting, and I don't want to re-type too much, see you in Minnesota!

My Grand Plan

So I realize that I am the greatest of all blogging slackers lately. As a a result of my recent suck-a-tude I am going to attempt to make amends to all two of my faithful readers, I am going to do a road log. I am going to be traveling for the next month. I will be spending a week on a High School mission trip in Wyoming, a week and a half in Madison, Wisconsin getting learned by InterVarsity and about a week and half seeing Donan's family. I will be driving the whole time (in the new wheels...yeah). During my travels I am going to take some time every night to record my observations and points of curiosity (I am anticipating a lot of curiosities while traveling through Montana...). I can not promise to post everyday because there are like two wireless hotspots in Wyoming and Montana combined, but once I reach the Midwest, I will post everything.

Much love, hope inspiration finds me on the open road.