Advent, the First Week

I stood at the front of the church in Little Rock, Arkansas that Saturday morning, September 20th, 1997. I was breathing heavily, sweating a bit. For three and a half years (long years, Miska would say), we dated. Finally, I got my act together, strapped on my courage and asked Miska if she would take a big leap with me. And now it was happening. I had been waiting so long. She had been waiting so long. The pipe organ swelled with Pachelbel's Canon in D, the two grand wooden entry doors at the back opened, and...

I have a friend who's had a truly treacherous past few years. His world came unglued, and the life he has now is nothing he would have imagined. Pain of every sort has stretched his body and mind in unthinkable directions. He has cried. He has almost given up. He has cried some more. But in it all, he has prayed. And waited. He has waited so long. In recent months, glimmers of a new day have trickled in through all the broken pieces. He sits poised, wondering - might there be a hint of life again - waiting, and...

As Advent began yesterday, we stepped into God's dramatic pause, God's long and... Advent means "appearing," and in these weeks, we wait for the celebration of God's appearing - and we remember that the whole of our lives are in fact a waiting for God's movement, God's healing, God's appearing. In this time, we learn that little of true value comes quickly. Ruin may bear down swiftly, like the wind; but redemption is a long, long work. This is not to say that God lumbers along, turtle-like - just ask Pharaoh who was chasing down Israel in the Red Sea or blind Bartimaeus who longed to be healed whether or not God ever moves immediately, with haste.

However, even when God demonstrates his agility, it is not because God has a sudden whim. God's prompt, decisive movement rides freely out of the long, long story he has been writing. Pharaoh caught the brunt force, like a hammer dropping, of a God who had been redeeming his people ever since a disaster in a Garden. Bartimaeus first saw the color of the sky and the color of his skin on the day Jesus touched him by the roadside - but God had loved Bartimaeus from his mother's womb. And Israel, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, cried out, "Hosanna! Son of David!" For hundreds of years, God's people had waited for the Rescuer to come, the "Son of David." Now, the crowd gathered, the prophet Jesus made his way into the city - could it be?

And...

Each Monday, we will gather here for a short reflection on Advent, as our way of entering God's dramatic pause, God's and... Do join us. And join in.

___

Also, each Monday, I would like to offer an Advent gift - my way of celebrating this time with you and my way of saying "thank you" for reading. This week, I am eager to give away (and tell you about) my friend John Blase's book Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas. Christmas books can represent the very worst of the religious publishing industry. Not this book. John is a true storyteller, and his fresh narrative, lively imagination and literary artistry provide a wonderful Advent companion.

If you leave a comment, your name will be thrown in for the drawing for a free copy. You have until midnight on Tuesday, drawing Wednesday morning. If you don't win, I have two suggestions: (1) buy John's book - a good gift idea, by the way, and (2) come back next week to for the next gift.

Joel Salatin

A piece I wrote for HalogenTV on Joel Salatin, the "high priest of the pasture" just went up.

Cafes and Public Spaces

It is almost as if every great civilization in the world had taken a brief time-out from trying to kill one another to brainstorm what a perfect public space should look like. {Michael Idov}

A friend, Andrew Albers, passed along this Wall Street Journal story this morning. It hit a few chords for me.

I should offer this caveat: I take major issue with Idov's jab at caramel frappuccinos (my favorite is actually java chip light), and slight issue with his side-swiping of laptoppers (I get his point, but there are virtues in working in public space, I think - though I wouldn't want my coffee-haunts to become consumed with the solitary and the utilitarian).

Getting beyond those squabbles, I'm enchanted by Idov's hopeful recasting of coffeehouses back to their original place as open, civic spaces where ideas and friendships and the latest news (along with a revolution or two) were on the daily menu. I mean, I'd love for one of my regular shops (here or here) to be a place like the one Idov mentioned, "where a sword fight once erupted over the correct pronunciation of a Greek word." In fact, I think next week I may just sneak in a blade or musket and see if I can't get one of the other regulars riled up (and I have just the word - only an hour or so ago Miska corrected my pronunciation of repartee. It's French, not Greek, but it will do).

I love to write in cafes. My first book Restless Faith was written almost entirely in the Pendleton Cafe and Coffee Company. Chunks of my last two books, numerous articles and more than a few sermons have found their voice between sips of an Americano (hot shots, little room for cream). Some writers head to the secluded cabin to write. Usually, I head to the coffee shop on Main. The coffee shop is where I have meetings, where I meet new people, where I run into friends and where I learn new bits about what is happening in our town.

Still, I read Idov's description - and I think he is on to something. I think our coffee house cultures often lack the same level of engagement as the older spaces, the expectation that you will meet and know others, the idea of the cafe as a civic space of ideas and shared communal practices. He says, "We've also used [the cafe] to balkanize ourselves...cafés here tend to draw specific crowds: a hipster café, a mom café, a student café...we use our coffeehouses to separate ourselves into tribes." Whenever that is the case, it's a shame.

Someday, I would love to help form (or participate in) a public space of the older sort, a place where I would read the paper, talk about the issues, write, expect to see old friends, welcome in new friends, share a sense of civic identity - and maybe even start a revolution or two. I have a measure of this now, but I want more.

I also wonder if it might be possible for the church to foster this sort of place (a guy can dream, can't he?). We should be the first ones to carve out this kind of public space, but unfortunately, if anyone has balkanized itself...but I digress...

What might space like this look like for you? Do you have it now?

Augustine and The City of God

Last night, I turned the last page on St. Augustine's City of God, all 1182 pages. Whew.

Augustine and I go way back - he had me write the forward for one of his books. I was happy to oblige, anything for a church father. So I was eager to read his central defining work (with Confessions running a close second).

The City of God is beefy. If you plan to go in, you best take provisions and gear, you're going to be on the trail for a while. I won't offer a full-scale review, partly because I need some space to process the experience and Augustine's sense of things - and partly because a proper review of City of God (COG) requires a level of energy I can't seem to muster.

Essentially, Augustine offered a comprehensive vision of the two competing cities, the City of God and the City of Man. These two cities offer us the two orders of society, or realms of human loyalty. I almost said human reality just there, but I think Augustine would take umbrage with that. For him - and this was one of my favorite themes in COG - there is only one reality. Everything else is a non-reality, unreal. So good and evil are not two somewhat equal forces competing for power in the world. Rather, what is real (God, good, the Kingdom of Light) is, through redemption, overwhelming all that is unreal (Satan, evil, the Kingdom of Darkness).

Emerging from the accusation (amid the rubble of Rome) that Christianity - and its opposition to traditional Roman religion/gods - brought down the Empire, Augustine gave a sweeping vision of God's purposes for the world and how these purposes set the stage for the outworking of human history. He wrote, not primarily as an academic but as a churchman, one who wanted to spur all who would listen on to their "final good" - that place where, whenever we arrive at it, "each [of us] are made happy."

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts (which I must admit, feels a bit unjust, like bumper-sticker Augustine)

Moreover, if God, by Whom all things were made, is wisdom, as the divine authority and truth have shown, then the true philosopher is a lover of God.

He is the fount of our blessedness, and He is the goal of all our desires...

For our good...is nothing other than to cling to Him...

[I]n comparison with the Creator's knowledge, the knowledge of the creature is like a kind of evening light. But when our knowledge is directed to the praise and love of the Creator, it dawns and is made morning; and night never falls while the Creator is not forsaken by the creature's love...And, indeed, the knowledge which created things have of themselves is, so to speak, shadowy until they see themselves in the light of God's wisdom and, as it were, in relation to the art by which they were made...they know themselves better in God than in themselves...In Him, therefore, they have, as it were, a daylight knowledge, whereas in themselves, they have a twilight knowledge...

In some cases, therefore, there can exist things which are wholly good; but there can never be things which are wholly evil.

The soul, then, draws life from God when it lives well...

For the good make use of this world in order to enjoy God; but the evil, by contrast, wish to make use of God in order to enjoy this world. By striving after more, man is diminished.

[T]he holier a man is, and the fuller of holy desire, so much more abundant is his weeping when he prays.

And a few of the questions I ponder as I walk away from Augustine for a bit (the same age-old debates here, nothing insightful or new):

To what extent was Augustine influenced by versions of Platonism, even as he critiqued Platonism on many fronts? Was his division between soul and body still overdone?

What exactly is the nature of happiness redemption offers in this world (not the world to come)?

In what ways (other than procreation) is orgasmic sexuality good, rightly pleasurable to the senses? To me, Augustine seems to say that any physical enjoyment of sexual acts are inherently results of our inferior fallen state. Could Augustine give more space to the good of sensual pleasure or even to the higher ideal of sex as sacrament?

Why does Augustine seem to go to such great lengths to absolve central Biblical characters from their wrongdoing (humanity even)? And could he achieve the "more spiritual" reading he desires (in some cases) without running quite so roughshod over the Scriptural narrative actually sitting before us?

And finally (cliche though it is): Augustine, what was your deal with women???

She Would Always Come

We went to Wyatt and Seth's school tonight for the Reading Cafe. Wyatt's teacher, Mr. Bow (who is a rock star in Wyatt's eyes - and not far behind that with Miska and me), had each kid record a poem they had written. When I heard Wyatt's voice, well, I don't think I can describe it.

The last paragraph tells a million stories. Wyatt has struggled much with fear, particularly this past year. We've been with him, held him, slept by his bed (and in his bed - and him by our bed) many nights. We've gotten frustrated, reached - and been pushed over (far over) - our limit, yelled more than we should.

But there it was in print, that last line - "She would always come." You wonder if your kids ever know how much they are loved, if they have any idea of the tenacity of your devotion for them and your commitment to all things good for them. You wonder if they know that they can relax in this world because our heart is on guard for them, all the time, every moment. Miska choked down a few tears tonight, listening in on the gift Wyatt gave her (and us).

"I guess he gets it," Miska said. I guess he does.


Burning Silver and Gold

My mom told me I was born in the night
When I was walking up the wall
Her blood was my blood and
Her food was my food.
I was soaking in the sweet dreams,
Sleeping in the hospital.
The next morning
I was an inch taller and
I was growing...

My eyes were a burning silver and gold.

The next night I had a nightmare,
I called, "Mamma."
She would always come.

Brokenness, the Genesis Project and a Table

Two weeks ago, I shared words from Barth that say better than I could the joy and the terror I find in preaching. Here are words from Henri Nouwen that say, again better than me, what has become a core conviction about leading and loving in God's community:

I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.

Actually, I should say that on my best days, I believe this. Other days (most days, probably), I run from these words. I'm fairly addicted to people thinking I have my trash together. I like to have the answers. I like to be right. I like to be the leader everyone wants to listen to. I want to have the good ideas. I want to work out my own problems. And that soul-draining, mask-wearing way will kill a person, let me tell you.

I've found a small company of friends who help me to remember the truth: that what I have to offer really has very little to do with me. They help me believe in the good news that my story is not the ultimate story. A few of these friends work with me in a little grass roots collective known as the Genesis Project. I don't know that I've ever mentioned it here, but there you go - another little bit about my life. GP, as we insiders call it (and you're welcome to be an insider too), has a good story, but ultimately it has grown out of friendships and a shared belief that we are a mess, that we need mercy and grace - and that Jesus meets us in community. Our official line, because every organization is supposed to have such a thing, is this: "the genesis project is a collection of friends with a heart for providing soul care for the leaders of developing churches."

We are friends who, due to our own stories, are keenly aware of the soul-draining realities of vocational ministry - and particularly the version known as "church planting." And we hope to spread our friendship around a bit (to spread the love, in other words).

So, I am eager to announce the Genesis Project's spring gathering, The Table. This small communal experience is designed for those leading new churches who are intimately connected with their own brokenness and need for grace - and who desire for Jesus to speak into these places among a community of friends.

The applications are now available online, and we will receive them until January 15th. The Genesis Project is funding this gathering, and it will be offered as a gift. Space is extremely limited, but if all goes as we hope, we will host others in the future.