arms down

Lately, I’ve noticed I have a tendency to romanticize periods of growth. I look at periods of growth and stretching and think that those times are great. The truth though is generally growth and stretching comes at times of awkwardness and uncomfortability. In the end, the growth is worth it, but in the short term, it’s not very fun.

I’ve realized over the last week that I still have parts of my character to work on, that while I’ve gotten better at not trying to control others or always be right, I can still be outright evil if you cross me at the wrong time.

It has nothing to do with whether or not I’m right, as I’ve found myself saying a lot lately, it’s very possible to be right but still be wrong. I’m not sure that the converse is true, that we can be wrong but still be right, but I think that even if you’re wrong, there’s a right way to be wrong. In other words, in an argument, debate, or in life there’s more to the situation that just being in the right, or just being in the wrong. How you carry yourself and how you treat others has much to do with this.

Last summer at a C.A. gathering, I remember that Rob talked about the need to take a posture of having our arms down and not being aggressive.  This week has been a good reminder that I still have a ways to go to in learning how to carry myself in such a way as keeping my arms down and not being the aggressor.  It really reminds me of Jesus’ teaching of turning the other cheek, sometimes I’ve been good at it but I’m certainly finding that my very nature wants to fight everything about turning the other cheek.

It seems fitting to conclude this sort of thought with the Lord’s Prayer, as Jesus offered that prayer for his disciples in the midst of some very tough teachings that are hard to live out.  There’s something there I think to hit at trying to follow the way of Jesus, which is so different than how everything in me wants to act.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be you name
your Kingdom come, your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen.

White Man

Wow, it’s been way too long since I’ve posted.  Unfortunately this will not be a substantial posting.  But here is a video that I have found myself watching over and over.  It’s really simplistic but I’m finding it moving.

What I'm Doing

It’s been interesting to observe the weather in Portland this February.  We had a warm spell for quite a while that had been really looking like we were going to have an early spring but alas, it was not to be.

February has been an interesting month.  I’ve been out of Portland as much as I’ve been in and I’ve been out of town for at least part of every weekend this month.  I’m looking forward to getting back into a normal swing of things and thinking about the future of this blog and what I’ll write about.  I’m sure you’ve probably seen that in the last little while I’ve started expanding my range beyond theology.  It’s not really that I’m losing interest in theology, it’s just I start to reach a point where I start to g insane if all I’m doing is writing about church stuff and theology but not being active in it.  That sort of writing just isn’t appealing to me.

I haven’t really wrote much about what I’m doing now.  I’ve been pretty hesitant to write about what I’m doing with my ministry vocation since seeing the Anchor die as a dream.  I’ve been moved a lot lately, reflecting on John 12:24

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. (NLT)

With that said, I’m starting to be okay with it and a little less hesitant to talk about what we’re doing now.  A year ago, after we decided it would be good to put the Anchor to rest, a couple experienced ministry friends and myself put our heads together and started dreaming about a new missional community for Southeast Portland.  It was a welcome thing and one which I’ve been excited to be a part of planning.  We spent a few months praying and planning and making sure it was something that we should be pursuing and have found ourselves really feeling like it was what we were to be a part of.

So last fall we started meeting with a small group and discussing the sort of stance that it takes to be the sort of community we hope to be.  Out of that group we’ve got about 12 folks who are continuing to pursue what that sort of missional community looks like.  I guess I share this because I’d love to have people praying for our thing.  Having already tried to lead one group and seen it fail, I know how tenuous these things are.  So please pray for us.  Pray that God would build us up and that He would be making us aware of where He is already at work in our neighborhoods.

And if you know people who are wanting to be a part of a non-traditional, missional community in Portland, put them in contact with me.  I’d love to invite them into what we’re doing, or at least tell them about it so they can dream their own dreams.

Monday Morning Musics | Mumford & Sons

It’s a Monday morning, and I’m having a tough time getting my brain into work mode. I’m getting there, but it just doesn’t want to focus.  I am on the other hand really digging a band called Mumford & Sons (inadvertently introduced to them by blog friend Jason Coker. Here’s a video of their song Sigh No More (lyrics underneath).

Serve God love me and men
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
And you know me
And you know me

And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing

Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be .

Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

I received a copy of Donald Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years a while back, and was excited to read and review it.  I’ve been a big fan of Donald Miller since reading Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted Deserts, and so I had quite a bit of anticipation about his new book.

As I started to read it though, I got about halfway through the book and started to comment that I was unenthused about it. Miller’s beautiful memoire style is in full display and his voice continues to be great, but I found myself being pretty disappointed in his approach to story.  In as broad a stroke as I can paint, Miller uses lessons that he learns about story while trying to turn Blue Like Jazz into a movie as a means of looking at life.  What follows is a combination of exploration into the art of story through the lens of movies and personal anecdotes from Miller about how he’s seen the facets play out in his life. I found myself in the end thinking that he had covered for a lot of complaints that I’d had earlier, I just felt that looking at our lives as stories through the lens of movies was the wrong approach.  For instance, books rarely transfer well to movies (as Don illustrates through his story).  So my problem was that we end up using the bastardized version of story for movies as providing insights into how to live life.

In the end I found myself looking at it more positively than I had about halfway through, and I can see it being a great read for someone who needs an extra thought into how they might live their life more meaningfully, but it just wasn’t that impacting for me.  I’d give the book a 3.5/5.

rain

The Portland rain returned yesterday, dumping in swells, at times making it hard to see when driving. It seems only a few days ago that there were blue skies and warmth and we were all starting to think that maybe this year spring would be a little bit early. I was just starting to get there as well, to put aside my pessimism that the rain was just around the corner and to enjoy the nice weather, to put some enjoyment in the thought that spring is around the corner. But in response the rain came back yesterday. It was pouring. Nothing out of the ordinary, but also nothing like what the weather had been like for a while.

The rain was back, dampening our hopes of an early spring, for at least a day or two. Who knows, there’s still time.

I’ve been realizing that so far this winter I haven’t listened to nearly as much depressing music as I usually do by this time in the year. I think in some sense there was enough disappointment in my last year for me to be able to go on without needing to further wallow in sadness and the vague depression that the lack of sunlight seems to bring out this time of year. Sure, I’ve listened to some Bazan songs, but I just don’t find myself that saddened, and I’m definitely not moping around listening to “The Poison” from his Pedro the Lion days pretending that I am nursing a great hurt.

Maybe this post will sound more depressed than needs be, but I think sometimes we need to allow ourselves to be a little gloomy. To look into what is lurking making us feel the beginnings of sadness, and to look it in the face and deal with it. As I write this I realize I start to sound a little like those self help, life coaching types. I received a review copy of Donald Miller’s new book. It feels a little self helpy, and I find myself not sure how much I like it, but continuing to read it because I like his style of writing.

But that’s not really the point. There are times to work on our lives and improve it and maybe even engage in a little self help. But I think there are other times where it’s okay to look at how normal and boring our lives are and say “I’m okay with this.”

It rained yesterday, it will probably rain again today. This is the time of year where we see a lot of rain. And you know what? I’m okay with it.

writer's block

It’s confession time. I have had a major case of writers block for the past several months. Actually, it might be more than just writers block, but life block, a general complacency towards doing the things I love and the things I find life in.

I read a book about artists one time.  And in the book, the author talked about how whenever we engage in the arts we face resistance in ourselves.  I don’t remember his argument for why we face resistance, though I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that we as humans don’t like change.  But regardless of that, I thought the author’s advice was very good.  It was that you have to take the resistance head on, do everything in your power to keep doing your writing or painting or drawing because otherwise you let resistance win.

So here I am, I am fighting against resistance, writing these words, listening for inspiration of where this might go.  I just remembered another illustration I once heard somebody say that seems similar to what I’m writing about right now.  I was at a conference for of new monastic type people talking about Benedictine vows and consistency and those sorts of monasticy things that I don’t quite get.  Truth be told I think at that point in the conference I had been zoning out, but I remember an illustration that was given.

The author was talking about how when you are in intentional community, you hit a point where you’re instinct is to run, to protect yourself from having so many people know you.  And he said that instead you need to go further into community.  As evidence he talked about being bitten by a dog.  Apparently if you are bit by a dog, you are supposed to counterintuitively thrust your limb further into its mouth than out.  The angle of a dog’s teeth would cause you more damage to try to pull it out than to push in, so instead you push into the dogs mouth and eventually it starts to choke and has to let go of your hand.

I don’t know whether or not this advice is true, mostly because I don’t want to experiment by enticing a dog to bite me.  I’ll leave this as theory but suppose that it’s true.  Certainly it lines up with what that author talking about art was saying. And it lines up with other things I’ve heard about writers block.

I’m a pastor and a theologian, so it would be easy for me to move on from here and talk about how this approach is related to the spiritual life, but I think instead I will leave it where it is, to sit there as good advice about so much of life.  And if you want to think about how it might apply, feel free. I would certainly encourage you, but for me, I’m going to continue writing and see if I can’t get past this writers block.

Happy New Year

Hey everybody, it feels like I have really been neglecting the habit of blogging for the past few weeks.  I would say it’s really social media in general, and I can’t say I’m apologetic for it.

Part of the reason I haven’t been as active blogging lately is that I just haven’t been interested in blogging about a lot of the theological stuff that I’ve usually used the blog to process and communicate.  That isn’t to say that I’m not being as theological, it’s more that I’m tiring of some conversations and feeling like I need to take a break from some things so that I can come back to them with a fresh feeling instead of feeling worn out as I do now.

That said, I just finished reading Peter Rollins’ “How (Not) to Speak of God.”  I don’t think I will do much blogging on it, but I do realize I have already started using a lot of his ideas and stories when talking with others.  It was an interesting read, although I must say you need to have some interest in both theology and philosophy for it to make much sense.

I think with the new year starting that it’s more intriguing to me to explore some of the more fundamental elements of theology and Christian spirituality.

I can’t say that I am unhappy to see 2009 go.  For me it was very much a transitional year. It had moments where it felt good and I was excited, but on the whole the year was one of transitions. I saw the community I was trying to form into a church plant fall apart.  It was one of the hardest and most humbling things I’ve been through.  That led way to discussions with two other leaders though about what sort of spiritual community we have been dreaming for in southeast Portland and began a process of starting a new community.  It has also led me to making some new friends, and seeing some of those friends move here from elsewhere to help us.

I’m looking forward to seeing the continued development of this spiritual community and continuing to befriend people in Foster-Powell.

I hope the outlook for the new year is looking good for you as well!

Recalibration

One of the things that I’ve been working on hard lately is recalibrating my attitude.  I tend to come at ideas and others in an all or nothing way – you’re either totally with me, or totally against me.  It’s been demonstrated to me by how I talk about some folks in the Reformed strand of Christianity, and especially a certain pastor in Seattle.

I am learning to recalibrate my thinking to try to point out the positive in people who I disagree with.  I say that I want them to treat the people I respect that way, so I’m having to learn to hold myself to the same standard.  It’s really surprising how hard it is to point to the validity of thought in someone you disagree with, and I believe for that reason, that it is a worthwhile venture.

humorous craigslist entry

I was browsing labor gigs on craigslist this morning, and came across a beauty of an entry.  I had to printscreen it because it was definitely on it’s way to getting flagged.  But it entertained me, so I in turn will attempt to entertain you by placing the text from it here:

There’s a gentleman who I loaned $4000 to last year that’s choosing not to pay me back. This guy works in construction and does tractor work, so he keeps his assets in cash. Even if I go to the judge with the promissary note we created I wouldn’t be able to touch his assets or paycheck because they’re all cash. If you help me recover this money, I’ll give you 1/3 or it.  His name is _______ phone number _______.

I definitely laughed at it, since the proposition is basically “steal $4000, keep me from getting in legal trouble, give me the money and I’ll give you a third of it back.”

When I checked it again this afternoon, the ad was gone.