tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49176340600994721702024-03-07T22:18:44.437-05:00Barefoot PilgrimIdentity ~ Faith ~ Love ~ HomeBarefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-73570815477748831822013-12-08T21:49:00.003-05:002013-12-08T21:49:41.134-05:00Favorite WordsI am relentlessly, hopelessly trinitarian.<br />
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It's a little bit too easy to pigeonhole varying strands or denominations in terms of the person of the Trinity that they (over)emphasize: evangelicals cling to Jesus; Pentecostals get swept up in the Holy Spirit; Catholics, perhaps, place primacy on God the Father as the all-perfect being.<br />
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No doubt faithful members of any of those groups would argue against my brutal oversimplification, and I would hardly blame them. But I wonder, occasionally, if one of the gifts I have in being in The Episcopal Church (a so-called "mainline" American denomination) is to point always to the Trinity.<br />
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I love the Episcopal / Anglican liturgy. I love starting off the service in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I love the Collect for Purity:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.</span><br />
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I love saying the creed every week. I even have my particular favorite parts of the creed (light from light, will come again, spoken through the prophets), as well as phrases I find it easier to left unsaid (and the Son). I love having a confession and absolution every week. I love to receive eucharist every week. <br />
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I remarked to my supervisor a few weeks ago that I feel a glacial shift in my piety is nearing completion. Growing up, I scarcely thought about the fact that we received communion maybe 3-4 times a year. When Cyprian was born, I <i>felt</i> off having missed church. It was weird, and I was so grateful to make it back to church the next Sunday. <br />
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But all that isn't even quite what I mean. Studying the Trinity literally changed my life. It changed the way I think about relationships with other people, about faith and doubt, about God. <br />
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When I get asked what my favorite word is, I usually say perichoresis. It's a Greek word that means "interpenetration" or "intercommunion" or some such. It means an ever living "dance" of the persons of the Godhead who know and are fully known by each other. And not only fully known, but fully loved.<br />
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In Systematics class at Houghton, my professor asked the class a question once that struck like a bell in my soul and emptied my mind for the rest of lecture (I literally have no idea what happened the last 20 minutes of class): Can you imagine, do you really want someone to <i>know</i> you, completely, all the way, fully realizing every bit of you? I was stunned. I was pretty sure the answer was no, and yet...<br />
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Lately, my favorite word has maybe been sehnsucht. A German word used by C.S. Lewis, sehnsucht I think is nicely phrased by two different song lyrics. Andrew Peterson has a phrase in "The Voice of Jesus" that goes "And I want you to know / when the joy that you feel / leaves a terrible ache in your bones // It's the voice of Jesus / calling you back home." The other is a song by Brook Frasier, and I believe it's quoting C.S. Lewis himself; at any rate, the song is called "The C.S. Lewis Song." "If I discover in myself / desires / nothing in this world can satisfy / I can only conclude / that I, I was not made for here."<br />
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All this to say, I want to bear witness to the terrible longing I have to be one with God, to be made divine, to participate in the nature of God where I am known and fully known and fully loved by a God I continue to learn to love.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-45936060277748373462013-12-02T20:13:00.001-05:002013-12-02T20:13:48.549-05:00Being vs. PresentingMy internship supervisor and I have spent the last three weeks talking about my difficulty <i>being </i>myself vs. <i>presenting </i>myself. In some ways (and maybe I'll talk about the reasons for this later) I feel like I'm trying to perform, to present myself. All questions of forcing something that should come organically, aside... <br />
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One way it came up (again) was as I finally figured out something about the question she asks me every week: "What's next? What else do you want / need? Where do you need to grow?"<br />
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They are really good, really important, necessary questions. I'm glad she asks. But I sat and started to realize that you can hear those questions in one of two ways. The first way is to say that "you are a failure, there is something missing, you lack something, you're messed up somehow so how do you need to fix it now?" The second is to hear "Yes, you are wonderful and beautiful but how are you still blossoming and becoming something even more beautiful?"<br />
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I was hearing the first set of questions. It was grating on me to hear them every week. I come back again to <u>Mindset</u>, making me think about how I've been trying to probe my identity over and over again and been really afraid of failure instead of taking each interaction as it is and using everything as a learning, growing experience.<br />
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Anyway, part of it is that I'm so cautious in social settings (in some ways!). I try to figure out the spirit of a group before I let myself really show into it. In seminary, issues of political correctness swirled around a few hot-button soapbox issues; I rarely, if ever, let my real feelings on those issues out into the open (if, indeed, I knew exactly what they were). Similarly, when I was telling a friend in college I had gotten into Yale she was flabbergasted: "<i>You</i> got into <i>Yale?!?!?!?!"</i> Maybe she was impressed, but it felt to me as though she clearly didn't believe that I was being honest, that I really had.<br />
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I'd be willing to bet that it surprises / surprised many people I was headed to seminary at all. I don't know that, outside a few who pushed me towards it, people saw me / I acted like a person who was serious about going into ministry. Other than playing roles in ministry settings, did I have the personality / habits of a minister? <br />
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I said to my supervisor that I keep the things that really excite me, my passions, under wraps most of the time. If they don't happen to come up, I don't let them out. If people don't ask me the right questions, I won't give my answers. The grind of the daily keeps a lot of what I think and want to to and want to be from coming out into the open (<strike>probably</strike> I'm scared of being judged, dismissed, etc.).<br />
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Anyway, all that serves as context for what I want to say. It starts with "I'm relentlessly, hopelessly Trinitarian..."Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-39451820886895447082013-10-13T21:24:00.002-04:002013-10-13T21:24:16.412-04:00Independence, Parenting, God: Part 3So I've been pondering questions like "Is independence a worthwhile goal to strive for (as an individual)" and "What kind of actions am I going to take to inculcate independence in my infant son?" At what point do I make choices to let him cry himself out, and what are the deeper ramifications of such decisions? Why am I making those choices? Will never allowing him to cry himself to sleep make me a helicopter parent who spoils my child? Will doing it too early teach his infant brain that his tears and screams have no effect on me? I certainly don't have answers to these questions.<div>
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Yet I keep thinking about them, and wondering if they say anything about my relationship with God. I grew up in an evangelical church context where some of the most serious questions were about theodicy and suffering: How could a good, loving God allow _______ to happen (to me)? I know people who had significant crises of faith wrestling with the tragedies in their lives and their image of God and all the ways the two just never fit together. They couldn't imagine that the God of love they worshiped condoned or caused their suffering in any way. Sadly, so sadly, some lost their faith in any God in the midst of these tragedies. "How can love co-exist with my suffering?"</div>
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Shusaku Endo's novel <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_(novel)">Silence</a></i> made quite an impression on me when I read it as a college sophomore. I highly recommend it, both as literature and theology (my friend Kyle is figuratively screaming at me in my figurative ear THEY'RE THE SAME THING (often)). Essentially the novel builds up to a climax where a character asks the question "Where is God in my suffering?" The answer, which holds little weight out of context, is "I AM right here suffering with you." It's a difficult answer, nearly incomprehensible, not least because some branches of theology can't abide the concept of a suffering God (even though, you know, the crucifixion). I can feel the triteness of the answer "God is here, suffering with you" when spoken to a mourner in the midst of a tragedy. In the context of the novel, I found it powerfully moving. In a hypothetical pastoral context, I'm less sure.</div>
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I find it still less moving when I consider Cyprian crying at 1 or 2 in the morning. What good does it do <i>him</i> if it "hurts me" to lay in bed and listen to him cry rather than go to him and try to soothe him?</div>
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What kind of identity do I want to have? I remember speaking with a friend about a book my professor had written on the Song of Songs. As I was reading the book (<a href="http://www.cistercianpublications.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=0879079568">Eros and Allegory by Denys Turner</a>) and the scriptures it referenced, I found myself meditating on the idea of security. The image of a woman tending a garden behind a locked door, waiting for her spouse to come, deeply scared me. Can I be that secure in the love of a spouse or of a God, that I can simply wait and prepare the garden around me, the physical space, knowing that any preparing I do on myself doesn't matter <i>because</i> of the strength of the love of the one who loves me? Can I simply be myself, hidden behind a locked door, waiting for one who loves me totally, fiercely, no matter what? </div>
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It frightens me because it leaves me no task to fulfill, no set of boxes to check off, no way to earn that love. I just have to be me, and I find that very difficult.</div>
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It challenges my notions of independence, of self-worth, of identity. I am who I create myself to be, I am the sum of all my actions / feelings / thoughts, I am my charisma and charm and humor and intelligence, I am my pride. How can I be any of those things without showing them off in front of other people? Without defining their worth in distinction to those around me (and often, admittedly, in superiority over them, in arrogance)? Aren't I independent? Can't I get along on my own, without them, carving out my own identity and solving my own problems, not needing the love or "helicoptering" of someone else to save me? Should I, as it were, be able to cry myself to sleep and learn to get along on my own? Is it the mark of how badly I've been spoiled to imagine anything else?</div>
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In a great little StarWars book I read in high school, an ancillary character repeats like a mantra "Why is always a question deeper than the answer." I have many (stream of consciousness) questions but few answers. </div>
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The short: I want to be a good parent! I want my son to have a healthy emotional / psychological life (despite the fact that watching the movie <i>Magnolia</i> makes me severely doubt this as a possibility). I want his identity to come from a place of security in our love for him. I want my identity to come from a place of security in God's love for me.</div>
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And I think the notion of independence might get in the way of having the mindsets and taking the actions I need to do to be and do those things.</div>
Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-21006322164587338212013-10-09T21:20:00.004-04:002013-10-09T21:20:50.933-04:00Independence, Parenting, God: Part 2"Babies need security." Clara's granny e-mailed us those words last week, in response to a thank-you note that also gave an update about how our first week was going. Cyprian's first night was lovely: other than nurses coming in all the time to check on things (and poke him in the foot with a needle to run some blood work), he slept pretty well. We didn't really think we were going to lose as much sleep as we had been warned we would! Why did everyone keep telling us to sleep when he was sleeping?<br />
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The second night was AWFUL. Basically, he tried to feed all night long. At about 2 a.m. Clara asked me to hold him and I managed to coax him to sleep and hold him until about 4. But then it was back to feeding again until 7 or so. Clara was exhausted in every way possible when the pediatrician came in to check on Cyprian that morning. She was lovely, and told us that everyone talks about labor and delivery so much but she felt like people need to know more how hard it is to have those first few nights. So if you're reading this and you don't already know, this is your warning: Night #2 breastfeeding is <i>tough</i>. Basically, your prolactin levels stimulate more milk production overnight than during the day, and baby is auto-conditioned to know about it. And he (or she!) will want to feed ALL THE TIME.<br />
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So the nights continued. Neither Clara or I are great nappers, and we still find it hard to "sleep when baby sleeps," even though we know we should. I napped once this week during my last few days off before heading back to school on Friday. Clara naps every other day, but it often takes her the entire time she has between feedings to settle down to be able to sleep, and she just has a hard time thinking it will be worth it to even try. So we're gradually getting more and more tired, incrementally more irritable, and missing the bygone days of as much sleep as we want!<br />
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And I've been ruminating. What kind of parents do we want to be? Do we want to ignore the warnings to have Cyprian sleep with us so we can both get some semblance of sleep, in the name of developing Cyprian's infant independence? Or do we want to figure out how to let him cry himself to sleep on his own?<br />
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"Babies need to feel secure." Somewhere I saw something saying children need to know their parents take them seriously. When Cyprian communicates his needs to us, all he can do now is cry. But if I start to discount that crying, assuming now he just needs to "get it out of his system" and "learn to be by himself," what kind of habits am I building in myself for the future? Perhaps more importantly - and much more worryingly - what kind of expectations am I creating for him? That his crying doesn't matter (and how will that work as an issue of gender)? That his problems don't matter to his parents? That weakness or inability need to make him insecure because his parents can't or won't do anything about them?<br />
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Babies have a hard entrance into the world. Warm, dark, safe and secure is the womb. Cold, loud, boundless and uncertain is the world. Babies are wrapped in their mother's protective embrace for their entire fetal development, and then (in this culture, apparently) encouraged to be alone and independent. Should Cyprian right now start to experience most of life on his back? Or do I want to be a parent who rides closer to the risk of "spoiling" my child in the interest of taking all his problems seriously? Is independence a worthwhile goal? <br />
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I don't want to get caught up between two opposite positions. Yes, sometimes I suggest to Clara that maybe he doesn't want to feed, and we need to experiment with other ways of calming him down. And sometimes I hesitate just a few moments longer than she would when he starts to fuss. But I'm going to go over and pick him up and try to calm him down, to let him know that I am there and I'm concerned about whatever it is he's fussing about, even if it is "non-specific baby angst." And I'll ride the line between always holding him and trying to control his future independence even at the stage when he is most vulnerable and needs me the most.<br />
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I'll try to find the middle way, the golden mean, the via media between independence and total dependence.<br />
<br />Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-57923259748731346062013-10-08T12:27:00.002-04:002013-10-08T12:27:58.405-04:00Independence, Parenting, God: Part 1<br />
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I've had a lot of time to ruminate in the last week and a half. I've been surprised and pleased at having the time, but less enthused about when I get it: usually from 2-4 a.m. while I'm holding the baby so my wife can get some sleep. Cyprian won't sleep anywhere there isn't a warm body right next to him. It's adorable and precious yet frustrating, since we both feel, as one book on parenting put it, "slaves to a tiny relentless dictator.</div>
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In any case, Parenting has gotten me thinking a lot about independence. Any search, no matter how short, will reveal a wide range of heated opinions on how to best encourage infant independence. A lot of this ranges especially around what to do with a sleeping baby. Articles on Co-Sleeping range from distressingly negative to gushingly positive. Some parents say they don't know how baby will sleep any other way (which is largely our experience); others legitimately wrestle with the tragedy of SIDs and suffocations. One article makes the claim that any SID that happens in the parents bed is automatically classified as caused by strangulation / suffocation, assuming and assigning fault and blame onto the parents for practicing something so "dangerous." Other articles point out that the one-bed-per-family-member practice is both an extremely recent <i>and</i> a distinctly cultural phenomenon. Many sometimes have entire families sleep together, and few can afford to have one bed and one room per individual sleeper. Huffington Post has a great article on <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-grossloh/the-milestones-that-matter-most_b_3195567.html?utm_hp_ref=tw">kids and milestones</a> and the ways that our culture encourages and praises some milestones while other cultures focus on different ones.</div>
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With all this going on, though, the two reasons I hear most often to have baby in a separate bed are the danger of co-sleeping and the need for infant independence. The combination of these two has the interesting effect of relegating any loss of independence do a legitimately dangerous level.</div>
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In the background of my ruminations I remember sitting in a circle in a professor's house listening to a PhD student from Romania get quite angry talking about the "american myth of independence." At the time I took her words on a fairly superficial level, merely nodding in agreement. Further study and reflection have increased my appreciation for her wisdom. Reading several articles on the necessity of "social capital" for a class on "Jesus and the Disinherited" began to point out to me the drastic importance that the community from which you come has on your life. Teach for America, the organization that got me into the teaching profession, uses a lot of statistics in its promotional material. One of the most frequently cited is that for many children, the quality of their education is determined by little more than their zip code. Jonathan Kozol's book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Inequalities">Savage Inequalities</a> details in distressing form the brutal realities of exactly that claim, looking at failing schools right next to wealthy districts in St. Louis, San Antonio, New York City and Newark.</div>
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So now I'm asking the following question(s): Is independence a worthwhile goal? Is it a milestone by which I should gauge my infant's development or health? Is it a category I should use to evaluate what is happening in my home or in my life?</div>
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Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-78295897621269524572013-07-01T21:41:00.001-04:002013-07-01T21:41:41.541-04:00Exploring FeetSo my feet are never very far from my thoughts. Particularly in the number of formal or semi-formal or professional or semi-professional environments I find myself in, I'm always having to ask myself whether or not I should wear my shoes. I prefer not to, of course. But I was at a friend's wedding recently where I knew my shoeless feet would be far more distracting for others than it would be a matter of comfort for me, so I wore them. When I was at a professional development session during a school day, I kept my shoes on for the duration of the event. When I was there on a day after school was over, I slid in and out of them as I felt comfortable (most everyone there was significantly dressed down as well). <br />
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Today brought me several of opportunities to ponder my own beloved "barefootedness." I visited the <a href="https://thechapelofthecross.org/">church</a> where I'll be interning for the next six months as part of my diocesan discernment towards ordination for holy orders. It was almost not a question at all; when I got out of the car to explore the church's campus, I left my shoes on the floor. My first entrance into a space that will be, for all intents and purposes, my church home. I wanted to encounter it barefoot, assuming the ground is holy. I was delighted when I found my supervisor's office and she too was barefoot! Granted, she was sitting at her desk and her shoes were right under her, but still. Not every clergy person would go so far, and it helped us break the ice on our first meeting, which was good since I was showing up unannounced. Or so it seemed.<br />
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Tonight I went to an ordination at the other Episcopal church in Oxford, St. Stephens. I've attended there now three times, and always barefoot. I can feel the vague disapproval of what I'm doing while I'm there, but have rarely had anyone comment on it. My own church, St. Cyprian's, loves that I come barefoot and even "bragged" after a fashion on me to the bishop. So whether he approves or not, he at least knows it's a settled part of who I am when I'm at church.<br />
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I got home after the ordination and had a voicemail from my supervisor. I called her back and we chatted, mostly about how Clara and I met and our past so that she can include us on an e-mail that will go out to the parish later this week. As we finished our conversation, she said "Probably, tomorrow, wear shoes (to staff meeting)."<br />
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Should I be frustrated? Should I rebel? Should I bring it up to her tomorrow when I meet with her afterwards? How much should I press the issue? I wore shoes faithfully (except during the physical act of preaching) at my internship parish during seminary. Should I advocate for my own chosen expression of faith? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?<br />
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Regardless of what path I walk tomorrow, I'm more convinced than ever that we process reality - at least in part - through our feet. After all, as my wife will willingly tell you, a baby first explores its environment with its feet.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-3769172822346830192013-05-30T21:00:00.001-04:002013-05-30T21:27:17.848-04:00Crawling out from under JugdmentI spend a lot of time and effort constructing judgments against myself. When I drive down the highway I make excuses for my driving decisions in my head, already constructing the (blisteringly rhetorical) arguments I'll have with other drivers after we get out of our cars. I agonize over my EC paperwork. I come into some meetings with excuses prepared, explanations of things I should have done differently that probably won't even be addressed at all. Fear of failure paralyzes me from creative action. Fear of judgment prevents me from exploring creative actions and realms of thought. <br />
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Tonight while I was sitting outside and listening to The Wailin' Jenny's during dinner, I found myself wondering what my undergraduate advisor would think of the music I listen to. No doubt I started thinking about it after seeing a playlist of his on facebook. He's always into some crazy music, whether Euro-rock or reggae or deathmetal or who knows what, I would never be able to keep up with the range of his tastes. My own spectrum is very small and I'm sure seems rather rigid (See? I'm constructing judgment against myself <i>right now!</i>). In the 8th grade I was fanatically convinced that I should never listen to anything but Christian music (which meant, of course, CCM). Neither should anyone else! A brutal run-in with one of Eminem's more violent songs hammered in the final nails to the coffin of my own self-righteousness. For years and years I locked myself into a small stream of music. I've only recently started to really swim in the other waters of folk / bluegrass. Bands like The Civil Wars, Mumford & Sons, The Head and the Heart fill my summer cookout playlists, and I'd be happy to discuss some of the religious themes that underlie their music. <br />
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Mental gymnastics, all to preserve my own sense of self-righteousness. Do I defend myself because I have to be right? Or do I create judgments against myself because I'm so desperate for affirmation? Do I actively hate myself, or do I simply lack the roots to trust that anyone (Divine) really loves me?<br />
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I think the passage of scripture I find most inwardly terrifying and disturbing is meant to be comforting. Jesus describes himself in John 10 as the Good Shepherd. He says twice, "I know my own and my own know me (v.14)" and "the sheep follow him because they know his voice (v. 4)." The word "because" terrifies me. Do I know what the voice of Jesus is in my life? No, not really. Do I seek it out in wise counsel, in prayer, in scripture? Sure, but not often enough. Do I hope it will come to me in worship, in song, in Eucharist? Absolutely. Do I feel supported by it in the voice of my friends? Without a doubt. But do I know it? <br />
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Both in <i>A Million Miles in a Thousand Years</i> and <i>Through Painted Deserts</i> Donald Miller speaks of the need to live in a good story. When I'm frustrated with my job and the atmosphere there and my own inability and inexperience and the tensions of living in two cities and trying to hear and discern and follow a calling through a cloud of unknowing, I sometimes doubt the goodness of the story I'm living. Do I doubt the goodness of the author, or just the quality of the story? Is there a way to separate the two frustrations, the two sources of doubt and pain? <br />
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I thought that my advisor would be terribly disappointed in my shallow exposure to the world of music. One time on facebook, I mentioned finding out that one of my favorite artists had released an album I'd never known about (David Crowder's <i>All I Can Say</i>). He asked what band I meant, and I, fearing judgment, never responded. I was afraid of judgment, even though I'm well aware that David Crowder and Jon Foreman and Isaac Jorgensen & Mark Labriola II are three of the most significant theological voices in my life. Maybe you could add Gungor. Definitely add Andrew Peterson. They have deep roots in my soul, perhaps watered by the (self-inflicted?) lack of other, older voices of wisdom in my life. I was afraid one voice of wisdom in my life would find the others trite, shallow, theologically blase. I hid.<br />
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Then in a flash I thought: who cares what he thinks? I know the answer is still partly "I do!" I also know the answer is "Nobody!" These artists, these voices, these people are part of the cloud of witnesses that surrounds me, makes me who I am, strengthens and encourages me with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.<br />
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For a moment, just a moment, I found myself crawling out from under judgment. It is who I am, right now. It just is. <br />
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And it is not for <i>me</i> to judge.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-3471210161846790252013-05-26T21:22:00.001-04:002013-05-30T20:22:32.232-04:00Unconsciousness as IntimacyMy wife and I had a mini-road trip over the weekend, getting a chance to see two sets of friends. First we stayed with a friend of mine from YDS in South Carolina. We got lost on the way and didn't make it to their house until late, but it was so wonderful that it didn't matter. We stayed up and talked with them until after midnight, sharing stories and laughing and enjoying the fellowship that is rare without a set of shared experiences in the background of the present. We've stayed with them overnight once before, and it was equally wonderful. The wife put words to one of my own thoughts over breakfast the next morning: "It's really nice to have people stay with you because it's just a different way to hang out than when you just come for a little bit and are gone the next day."<br />
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Sleeping together creates intimacy. Whether it's in the same bed, under the same roof, or even under the same stars on a camping trip (which I <i>really</i> want to do with my youth group this summer), sleeping together and waking up together must be a kind of liminal experience. Whether it is because you enter into a new kind of trust with someone when you are willing / forced to be unconscious around them or simply because they were there in the night and are there again in the morning, you're sharing something (that I think is) extremely special. My two best friends from college are both guys that I lived with, guys whom I visited and spent the night at their house. Even my roommates that I'm not in close contact with now... I shared something with them I didn't have with other friends at college. And some of the most treasured friends of my heart are the ones I spent entire summers with on a ministry team. <br />
<br />
I remember, actually, being secretly terrified of one of my friends that I spent two summers with on a ministry team. It became increasingly difficult for me to understand that they probably knew me better in so many fundamental ways than anyone else. She had seen me in an endless number of situations where there was no pretense in my being, when I had no chance of trying to control the way that other people interacted with me, whether that was jumping up and down in worship or crying my eyes out or playing soccer. Then we got in the same van with all those other people and kept on driving. Our friendship grew, over time, and even though we were never extremely close, but I was aware that she had insight into my identity (or at least I felt she did) that no one else shared. And I was afraid. I was still learning to trust that people actually liked me, the real me down at my core. The unconscious me.<br />
<br />
On Trinity Sunday, a day when everyone should be preaching, teaching, and learning about perichoresis (without every using the word, for heaven's sake!), maybe my sermon would have been that the church should experiment more with road trips and slumber parties.<br />
<br />
<br />Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-5198991730873087142013-05-24T03:05:00.003-04:002013-05-24T03:05:32.175-04:00Smart Phones. Dumb Questions.I can't sleep. It's 2:30 a.m. on a school night.<br />
<br />
I hardly think that I'm weary with the pain of Jacob's wrestling, but my mind is definitely not at peace. <br />
<br />
I've <strike>needed wanted</strike> needed a new phone practically since I got the one I have now, the first Christmas after I got married. I got a refurbished phone from the dealer. From day one, it turned itself on and off repeatedly at will until I had one bar of battery left. For the first year it would only do it if I wasn't using it. Since then, it's done it whether I've been sending or reading a text, setting my alarm (usually primary function #1 of my phone), or even a couple times when I have been having a conversation on it. I should have sent it back during the warranty period, but I never did. I couldn't exercise the initiative.<br />
<br />
My dad at Christmas noticed it and we had a conversation about me ordering a new phone, now that I've had the same phone for quite some time. <br />
<br />
To add in some of my internal dilemma, I've said repeatedly that I don't even want a smartphone. I don't want my e-mail access 24/7. I didn't even really want a cell phone in the first place. I got one only because I was going to school so far from where my parents lived and needed a way to stay in touch with them. <br />
<br />
So when my dad asked me the other night if I still wanted a new phone (yes, I know, Christmas was a while ago), I automatically got out on the website to see what upgrades I could get for free. I was surprised to note that there were actually more non-smartphone options than there were when I got the phone I have now. However, I noticed I could get an iPhone upgrade for free.<br />
<br />
I more or less jumped at the chance. The only hesitation that preceded any action on my part was that we really can't afford to pay for a data plan. I called my dad and he said don't worry about it, so of course as soon as I got home I got online and had it shipped here.<br />
<br />
But in my sleepless state, I'm having second thoughts. First of all, if I were a government and I wanted to have <i>1984 / Fahrenheit 451 </i>levels of control over people, wouldn't smartphones be the best way to do it? I mean, never mind that Google is actually destroying any notion of privacy as we know it, and has been for years. The internet itself, facebook, whatever, it's all tracking our data. I was just remarking the other day that I can't imagine political smear campaigns ten years from now, when all you have to do to "dig up dirt" on someone is spend ten minutes surfing through facebook photos. Yikes.<br />
<br />
I know, I know, it sounds a little conspiracy-ish. I can't help it.<br />
<br />
I also wonder: is Thoreau still Thoreau if he has a smartphone? <br />
<br />
If I have a smartphone, will I become a consumer of nature, of experience, rather than someone who merely exists? Will I I always be plugged in (like how I'm writing this lengthy rambling attempt to come to closure online instead of paper)?<br />
<br />
The other thing bothering me is essentially this question: Am I really so desperate to conform? Do I talk a big game (saying I don't want a smartphone) to justify the fact that I can't afford to be like everyone else, but then abandon all my swagger at the first chance to join the crowd? Do I want to conform, or do I want to be different? How badly do I want to be just like everyone else, to have nice things like everyone else, to fall at the altar of Apple? <br />
<br />
Why do I feel differently about getting an iPhone than I do about my long held plans to get an iPad this summer, or to use frequently the iPod touch I've had for a year and half? I even said to my wife that having an iPhone eliminates the need for me to get a new iPod touch, which is something she and I have both talked about. Is having a smartphone really so different than having both an iPod and a non-smartphone anyway? <br />
<br />
Growing up in a holiness tradition, I heard NON-stop about the importance of being "set apart." God has called me to be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. I must and shall live a pure, set apart and holy life. Non-Chrisians should look at me and see something different and be attracted by my way of life to the God who makes me holy; that's what St. Francis's quote about preaching the gospel without using words means, duh. "Holiness, holiness is what I long for."<br />
<br />
What is a Christian approach to living with technology? Is there a "Christian" approach to technology? Should there be? How different do I have to be? Does being different mean avoiding what everyone else is doing? Can I do what everyone else is doing and just do it differently, with a different mindset and different attitudes and different emphases? I want to make some comment about Wendell Berry here, but never having read more than two of his poems I can't. But I wish I could.<br />
<br />
Is this a matter of faith? Is this a matter of my identity, of the way that I mark myself out as different from everyone else? Or is it the weary ramblings brought on by party-food dinner and too much end of the year stress? I'm not sure how important to let all of this be. Part of me wants to cancel the order. Part of me knows I could do that and return it at any time, especially to downgrade. Part of me is already upset with myself for being so impulsive, the same part of me that remembers a meeting with a psychologist who recommended that I be more impulsive because she could tell right away how cautious I am, who much I need to approve of what I do before I do it. Do I need more time to think about this? Would I even come to a different conclusion? Part of me can't believe I didn't talk all this out with my wife before I acted and ordered it. I feel judged by her... which says far more about me than it does her. I feel judged a lot, internally; probably because I unconsciously play the role of judge in most of my everyday life. I think that my small differences from other people make me a better person. How arrogant, how ridiculous is that?<br />
<br />
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-44852446653759867262013-05-21T21:28:00.000-04:002013-05-21T21:28:21.882-04:00CincinnatusIn CPE, I was shocked when our supervisor looked at me during a group supervision and said that I was exercising my leadership in the group. I hadn't thought about doing that, nor had it been one of my goals. I actually had trouble seeing what she meant until she (and the rest of the group) pointed out that I was the one who started daily Noonday prayer for our cohort and invited everyone to join in, I was the one who suggested that we go out for drinks after Super(vision) Tuesdays, I was the one making sure we ate lunches together. Those things seemed like common sense to me. Even deeper, I was doing those things because I wanted and needed the community support. I'm afraid of being lonely. But while I was thinking about making sure my own needs were being met, others were seeing me exercise leadership.<br />
<br />
My friend Otis hammered away at me, over and over, that more than anything else I needed to work on my own sense of "inner authority." I got frustrated with him at the time, and still bristle a little bit thinking about it. I'd rather work behind the scenes, most of the time, on important things. I'm afraid of public failure. I'm more comfortable tweaking and adjusting other people's ideas than creating the vision. I'm happy to pursue goals that someone else has set rather than dream up my own. It happened a lot in Episcopal Evangelism Network meetings; I was often quiet for much of the meeting, while conversation and different opinions escalated and divisions threatened to slow our meetings to a halt. When anger started to appear in the room, I would simply raise my hand and wait for someone to call on me. I'm afraid, usually, of direct conflict. I'm working on it. But patiently waiting for the group to allow me to speak, waiting to make sure my own voice would be heard, others were seeing me exercise leadership.<br />
<br />
An ancient Roman legend tells the story of Rome beset by her enemies, besieged within her own walls, facing certain defeat from the barbarian horde. And a lonely farmer, Cincinnatus, came to the head of the military and led the Roman army to victory and the city to a new peace. When he did, he eschewed power and returned to his farm.<br />
<br />
In an effort to meet my own needs as an EC (Special Education) teacher, I'm exercising leadership again. Only this time, I recognize it. I'm putting my own personality, perspective and time into fixing a problem that has been systemic and pervasive and persistent within Teach For America: the lack of training that EC Corps Members have received before reaching the classroom. I pitched the idea to an ENC big-wig, and a friend joined up with me and we're writing out own plan for training materials. We're hoping to write our first presentation on the basics of Individualized Education Plans next week. We've sent out our ideas to other EC CMs, and they have given us great feedback and been really excited that we've initiated things.<br />
<br />
I have to confess: I like having the control. I freaked out a little bit (internally) when a document I had created circulated without me knowing it. I got feedback as a result from people I didn't know personally, which was extremely helpful. I'm afraid that someone else could do it better than I could. Scratch that; I <i>know</i> there are several people who could do it <i>much</i> better than I could. <br />
<br />
But I'm exercising leadership. I'm finding my own sense of inner authority, at least a little bit. And I like it.<br />
<br />
I'm trying to hold the reins loosely, to collaborate, to welcome other voices and follow different directions. I'm making sure I'm not the only one working on this and that I have a partner at all times... which is good, because the friend I am working with is much more practical about actionable steps than I am. I need that. I'm learning about new ways of exercising leadership.<br />
<br />
But I can't help wondering, as I enjoy this semi-public position of leadership that I know I am exercising: should I, like Cincinnatus, avoid seeking out this leadership and power? How will I know when the job that I initiated is done?Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-59359145202960233522013-05-20T20:54:00.002-04:002013-05-20T20:54:38.333-04:00How fitting, to start with failureVeni Creator Spiritus<br />
Mentes tuorum visita.<br />
<br />
Come mid-November, I struggle to find traction in my spiritual life. The church year leaves me high and dry, with the great festivals either tantalizingly close but not yet present or too far in the past to provide me any vitality. When we haven't reached thanksgiving yet I can't wade into Advent and prepare for Christmas... and Pentecost and Easter seem to have vanished long ago. It's been a perpetually dry season for me. Dryness is so necessary for a healthy life cycle it comes out good, in the end, but that doesn't make it any easier.<br />
<br />
Because I'm so terribly vain, I think I could succeed in lots of different PhD programs. Probably one of my few ideas worth any merit, however, would be to do one in a field I have no real training in: ethics. I think that a book on "The Ethics of the Fruits of the Spirit" would be entirely fascinating, challenging, and wholly appealing to a broad swath of Christian traditions, if properly packaged. <br />
<br />
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." I suppose I really should say goodness; but I've long felt that the fruit most lacking in my life is self-control. <br />
<br />
In this season of Pentecost (and I'm trying to think of it as the season <i>of</i> Pentecost, not the season <i>after</i> Pentecost and certainly not <i>Ordinary Time</i>; no wonder I'm so burnt out by the end of it. No wonder high liturgical churches suffer, in Pentecostal eyes, from a lack of the freedom of the Spirit.) my BHAG (that's big, hairy audacious goal) is this: to write every day.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-55966393680252979872013-04-28T20:33:00.003-04:002013-04-28T20:48:02.348-04:00Hebel (or thewritingmoment)I posted recently about wanting to be a writer. This week I've thought several times: wow, I really should sit and write that down. It would make a great blog post! I can't wait to use that idea for a sermon! And then something else grabs my attention and I move on and don't do anything with it. The moments pass so fast and I never remember them. It's like chasing after the wind. The writing moment is really just a second in my eyes. The writing impulse is the tiniest tic of a hardly-felt nerve. If I gave my body more attention I'd notice it, but I can't usually be bothered. Fleeting and vain is my affinity for writing. I need a way to capture these moments and give them some attention and effort.<br />
<br />
What would appeal to my sensibilities is to carry around a tiny little journal, a moleskine notebook to write everything down in, the way Jamal does in <i>Finding Forrester </i>(one of my favorite movies since I first saw it in high school). Except for the fact that I loathe carrying things in my pockets, it would work out well. <br />
<br />
So, I decided to try to enter the (terrifying) digital age. I created a Twitter account. Literally for this purpose: to give myself a place to instantly keep and store some of the ideas that I want to go back to and write about later. It's my writer's notebook, if you will, a list of topics I need to come back to when I have the time and intention to write about them... at least, that's the ideal. Twitter is going to be my tool; we'll see if having it increases the labor for which I'm adding it to my toolbox.<br />
<br />
Will it work? We'll see!<br />
<br />
If you are truly desperately bored, you can find me on the Twitterverse at @pilgrimbarefoot<br />
<br />Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-35330163533540379922013-04-14T19:04:00.001-04:002013-04-14T19:05:34.232-04:00I Am a Words PersonOne of the books I'm reading right now is Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." Donald Miller's writing has played a pretty important role in my life: "Blue Like Jazz" was one of the three most important books I read in college. <br />
<br />
At the end of part three, Don is telling the story about meeting a remarkable man who writes down all his memories. He has, Don says, more than 500 pages of his own memories. As I've written here before, <a href="http://barefoot-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2012/01/memory-is-where-i-live.html">memory</a> is extremely important to me, and I was really struck by the idea of writing my memories down (alongside realizing, as I scrolled through pictures recently, that memory is one of the driving forces in what makes the facebook so popular).<br />
<br />
Reading "A Million Miles" is pushing me towards something I've known for some time but been too afraid (and too <i>lazy<b>) </b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">to admit, even to myself: I think I want to be a writer.</span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">My last semester at Yale I read </span>Oryx and Crake</i> by Margaret Atwood. While the main themes of the story lean more towards dystopia, bioengineering and pharmaceutical corruption, one of the things that really stuck with me was when the protagonist is forced to go to a "low-level" university while his friend goes to the highest achieving school there is. The reason they are split up? Crake is a science and math genius. The protagonist is a words person.<br />
<br />
I am a words person. I love to dwell on the resonance and symbolism of words and their meanings and their multiple meanings. Even though I knew from the start that my preaching class in seminary was taught from the perspective of a preacher who sees himself as a poet (rather than a herald or a prophet, as described in Thomas Long's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Preaching-Second-Thomas-Long/dp/0664229433">book</a>) I didn't expect my own style to emerge poetic at all (I don't know what I did expect). But when I think about my own style, I think of it as the poetic. <br />
<br />
I wrote a lot of poetry in high school; you can find some of it out there on the internet without even trying very hard. It's probably embarrassing. But it captures my attempts at self-expression, my attempts to put emotion into words. I won't say it was ever a precise attempt, because it certainly wasn't that at all; again, I'm not seeking to hide from my own laziness at any point in this <s>confession</s> post. I couldn't even post here once a week during Lent!<br />
<br />
This weekend at a TFA summit in Raleigh, I attended a breakout session on Social Entrepreneurship. It was <i>fantastic</i>. The presenters talked a lot about hard work. They talked a lot about reflection. They talked a lot about ideas. They talked a lot about possibility, potential, creativity, and even a little bit about joy. I love all those things (well, again, except maybe hard work). Even more exciting, albeit daunting, was this: <a href="http://bullcityforward.org/overview/who-we-are/staff-bios/">Christopher Gergen</a>, when asked how he became a social entrepreneur and why, said that for most people, their 20s are all about purposeful exploration. It's when you get to your 30s that you want to be building something. I'm still in my 20s. One of the things I know I want to purposefully explore in the next few years?<br />
<br />
Being a writer.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-43422259371264315372013-04-04T18:02:00.001-04:002013-04-04T18:02:39.716-04:00To Wash the Feet of a Hurting and Embarrassed World<!--StartFragment-->
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I was fortunate enough to be asked to preach Maundy Thursday this year at the church that is sponsoring me for ordination. Below is the text I preached from:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus said: You do not
know what I am doing, but later you will understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And again,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">You also should do as
I have done to you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">May I speak in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I’d like to tell you,
just for a minute, about my best friend Ryan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Ryan is a very </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">clean</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> human being.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He is a neat-freak, a
germaphobe, an obsessive cleaner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He wrote rules for his
housemates and put them up by the sink,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Rules for how to keep
the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">sponge</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> clean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Ryan knows that I’m
not going to wear my shoes, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But he still thinks
I’m crazy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Ryan would </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">never </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">go around barefoot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Ryan is the kind of
person who comes to Maundy Thursday and says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">No way - no how - no
chance am I taking my shoes off to have my feet washed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Dirty. Gross.
Unsanitary. Weird. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">EMBARASSING</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">How good of Jesus to
be honest,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">As he knelt to wash
his friends’ feet:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">You do not know what I am doing, but later you will
understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">How many times did
Jesus say this that we do not have written down?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">How many times </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">should</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">
Jesus have said this?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When the storm raged
all around that little fishing boat, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus took a nap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When the crowd of
five-thousand was half-starved and far from home, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus sent the twelve
out with two pieces of fish between all of them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When the Pharisees,
the strictest of all Jews, confronted Jesus,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He told them
straight-up that they didn’t understand the Sabbath.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When a hated
tax-collector was in the crowd,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus broke
everybody’s social rules and invited himself over for dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> You go to the nicest house in Oxford
and try that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When the mob was already
holding their stones, intent on righteous murder,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus dropped down and
drew in the dirt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When a voice from
heaven announced the start of his ministry,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus fled / into the
desert and disappeared // for forty
days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">You do not know what I am doing, but later you will
understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In Bible study last
Sunday morning<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Pastor John told us
that when we get baptized<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We don’t have to turn
in our brains at the door.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I’m glad for
that. I’m a teacher! I’m glad for that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But I also know
something else:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">A life that follows
Jesus is going to be filled with a whole lot of confusion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">You do not understand what I am doing, </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus said</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">, <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">but later you will understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Peter did not
understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Brash, impulsive
Peter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Peter,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Who named Jesus rabbi,
master, teacher, messiah.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">All Peter could see
was Jesus,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Doing the work of a
slave.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">It was a slave’s job
to deal with the feet,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The lowest slave of
the low.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus took his job,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Taking sandaled feet
that trod the dusty, unpaved roads where the animals ran wild,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And washing them
clean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">{Peter did not
understand,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> “Lord, not my feed only but also my hands and
my head!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Peter did not
understand.}<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">For all that Maundy
Thursday is concerned with our feet,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">It says a lot about
our hands as well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus knew, the gospel
says, that the Father had put ALL things into his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">It reminds me of that
song:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“He’s got the whole
world, in his hands…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The Father had put all
things into Jesus hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">ALL things.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Justice. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> Dominion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> Glory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> Power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The Kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Do you remember the
temptation?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“Now Satan took Jesus
to a high mountain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And he showed him all
the kingdoms of the earth.<br />
And he said to him:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“All this I will give
to you,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">If only you will bow
down and worship me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“Love the Lord your God and worship Him only”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus replied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Satan thought the
kingdom, the power, and the glory were in his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But Satan does not understand power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When Satan in his
pride grabs for power <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He thinks of ruling
and of riches, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> Of fury and force,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> of might and of majesty, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> of command and of control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Satan grabs power to
lord it over others and force them to serve him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The temptation Jesus
faced in the desert was a double edged attack:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus dodged one
temptation by not taking the power from Satan,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">By staying true to the
One True God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The other temptation
that Jesus now overcomes <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The temptation was to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">understand</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> power in the way that Satan
seeks to hold it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The battle Jesus began
with Satan in the desert begins to reach its climax here,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In the upper room at
the last supper.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The Father had given
all things into his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Don’t you know that
even now the tempter was there,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The echo of his voice
whispering in Jesus’ ear:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“Take up the sword
with a mighty hand and oustretched arm,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Attack your enemies,
force the Romans out of Jerusalem, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Set up a kingdom of
great power and glory<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Put all the nations
under your feet!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In that moment, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When Jesus had all
things in his hands,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He did not stretch out
a mighty arm,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But he knelt and took
up stinking, filthy feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Jesus understands
power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Power is to be used
for the sake of love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> “He loved them to the end,” one translation
says,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Or in another “He
showed them the full extent of his love.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He took off his outer
robe,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Tied a towel around
his waist,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Knelt before them to
do the work of a slave,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And used his hands to
wash their feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And he said to them:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">“You also should do as I have
done to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">What has Jesus done<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> With his
hands?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He has done the work
of the lowest of the low.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He has ensured that
they are clean in their body and their spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">He has anointed the
feet of his friends <br /> That he knows will flee from
his suffering.</span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I was with my friend
Ryan one Maundy Thursday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The bulletin for that
service told us that we were free to have our hands washed <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">instead of our feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And Ryan, germaphobe
that he is,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Instantly said “no way
am I taking off my shoes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I peer pressured him,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Embarrassed him into
doing what everyone else was doing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I understand that many
of you may feel now as Ryan did that night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">No way am I taking off
my shoes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Dirty. Gross.
Unsanitary. Weird. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">EMBARASSING</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I know you may not
believe it,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But even I know how
hard it can be to accept having your feet washed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I know it can be truly
humiliating to take off your shoes <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And allow someone to
go so low as to wash off your feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">One of the most
humiliating experiences of my life was having my feet washed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I was out in the grass
playing soccer with my friends,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And of course, I was
barefoot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We played for hours in
the mud and the grass.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">At one point, a friend
kicked me with her shoes on and cut open my foot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">It wasn’t that
painful, so of course I kept playing!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But when I went to
return to pick up my backpack from a classroom,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I passed by a friend
of mine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">She was shocked at the
sight of my feet,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Bruised and dirty and
still slightly bleeding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">She forced me into a
bathroom – a women’s bathroom! – <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And made me sit on the
sink so that she could wash off my feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I was just like Peter:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">No! Stop! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">You don’t have to do
this!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I’m not worth this
kind of love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Friends, the lesson
from 1 Corinthians is clear:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We must be humble as we
come to this altar to receive, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To discern the body
and blood of the Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We must proclaim the
Lord’s death until he comes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Friends, we are used
to coming to this altar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But tonight, we are
invited to come forward not once, but twice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">One time will seem
familiar. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We come to kneel at
this altar,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To receive communion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But when we do that
tonight, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">It will be after the
first time we come,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">When we come to we
have our feet washed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We come to receive
communion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">After we have been
humbled,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Embarassed, and even
humiliated,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">After we have come to
realize<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We do not deserve this
kind of love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">This is no empty
religious ritual.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">We are coming forward
to meet the hands that hold the whole world in place.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The hands into which
the Father has given </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">everything</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The hands that truly
understand that <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Having power means to
love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">That having everything
means being invited to serve.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">That the true kingdom
and power of God is NOT of this world,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But calls us to die to
this world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To come to the altar
unsure, confused, and even embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Calls us NOT to
understand,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But to stretch out our
own hands,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Weak, empty and frail,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And to hear the words:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The body of Christ,
the bread of heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The blood of Christ,
the cup of salvation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Then we will be called
to get up, on our feet, and to go out<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To love and serve the
Lord with gladness and singleness of heart,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To do to others as has
been done unto us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To be the hands of
Jesus, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Seeking not our own
power,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">But filled with love,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">To go out into a world
that is confused, broken, hurting and embarrassed,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">And to wash its feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Amen.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-57743591231689529182013-03-10T19:42:00.003-04:002013-03-10T19:42:54.072-04:00Jehovah JirehThe last two days have held a number of small, simple reminders for me about God's provision. <br />
<br />
I'm not normally an anxious person. However, all the factors concerning my ordination process have created anxiety for me. It's easy for me to identify why: I'm not in control of anything. It's no different now than just before Advent: if progress is going to be made, it's going to come from the whirlwind of God's grace, not from my own feeble efforts to make things move. I knew that going into "the process;" but I didn't know how much it would stay true throughout the process!<br />
<br />
"The process," basically, involves oodles of meetings and paperwork. I had to get a four page document filled out by my primary physician... but I didn't have a primary physician. I have to fill out a lengthy (30+ pages) for a psychological exam that ALSO has to be completed by March 15th by a psychologist / psychiatrist who only offers appointments during normal business hours. The vestry had to approve and sign my application for postulancy. My Parish Discernment Committee had to go well. I had to get official transcripts from both my educational institutions.<br />
<br />
My transcripts went out on the day I faxed the forms to Houghton and Yale. My PDC has gone exceedingly well; at every meeting someone has said "You were born to be a priest!" I found out that the deadline for the psychological exam is actually later than March 15th, so I'll be able to complete it during my spring break; I won't have to miss any work to get it done. Finally, even though the doctor's office I ended up going to told me it could take as long as two weeks to process my paperwork and get my records, they got them over the weekend and my meeting took a scant 90 minutes.<br />
<br />
At any point a serious delay could have happened to keep me from moving forward. And while I'm by no means assured that TBOAPE (the best of all possible events) will take place (i.e. that I'll be ordained by next June), my anxiety decreases with every mini-step that I accomplish. Whether or not I finally get ordained in the Episcopal Church, I can see with a new clarity that God's grace is guiding my steps and providing for me.<br />
<br />
Many of my friends in the Wesleyan church can point to a youth camp or a revival or a sermon experience where they "heard a voice" calling them into full time ministry in the church. I've never heard an audible divine voice in that kind of context, at least not that I can remember. But when wonderful people sit in a room with me and agree with me that God's grace has been given to me it confirms the inner call that I have slowly learned to listen to: that all my passions and interests are for God's work, to try to be more like Jesus in the world (or at least exactly who Jesus wants me to be).<br />
<br />
Again: I'm not normally an anxious person. Probably, living at home and then being in college and then graduate school, the number of possible anxieties I've faced is relatively small. I haven't, if I'm honest with myself, had to look for God's grace that hard. I haven't had to rely on God's grace all that much: it was everywhere, abundant, the foundation of everything that I had or knew. Now that I'm an "adult," however, there are so many more things to worry about: the "process," finances (so I should have worried about these a bit more), jobs, automobiles... and fitting faith into all that mess. <br />
<br />
I feel like I'm learning a new skill. Or at least practicing one, on my own, that others provided and exercised for me: the skill of naming and claiming God's grace in my life. The skill of being able to honestly and thankfully say the words to the song I learned growing up: "Jehovah Jireh, my Provider, Your grace is sufficient for me. My God shall supply all my needs, according to his riches in glory. He shall give his angels charge over me. Jehovah Jireh cares for me."Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1Oxford, NC 27565, USA36.3107004 -78.59083450000002836.2083494 -78.752196000000026 36.4130514 -78.42947300000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-40845557494127261572013-03-02T21:04:00.000-05:002013-03-02T21:04:38.547-05:00Ashes, Dust, and Candle WaxLast week at youth group a wonderful young priest came and spent time with us to teach us about Taize and prayer <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Community-Called-Taiz%C3%A9-Worship-Reconciliation/dp/0830835253/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1362273994&sr=8-5&keywords=jason+brian+santos">in the style of Taize</a>. After a shared meal and a lot of talking, we went into the sanctuary. She pulled out an entire bag of tea lights, and I was immediately delighted. Not only are candles important to me, but just a few weeks earlier my wife and I had led a session on prayer where we had talked about how just the simple act of lighting a candle can itself be a prayer. It was a happy harmony of lessons on prayer for our students. It's tough to know, just seeing them once a week, how much they are internalizing what we expose them to, but I'm pleased to think the Holy Spirit is at work even in our sometimes haphazard plans.<br />
<br />
Anyway, because of that night I ended up sending the link to my <a href="http://barefoot-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2011/12/advent-lessons-and-carols-my-senior.html">Advent Triptych</a> to that priest, as well as the woman who runs our youth group. One of the quotes that I had in mind as I was writing that sermon is from a notecard my dad keeps on his bedroom door. He has it as a Jack London quote; an internet search will question the validity of the reference. In any case, this is what it says:<br />
<br />
<b>"I would rather be ashes than dust!</b><br />
<b>I would rather that my spark should burn out</b><br />
<b> in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.</b><br />
<b>I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom</b><br />
<b> of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.</b><br />
<b>The function of man is to live, not to exist.</b><br />
<b>I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.</b><br />
<b>I shall use my time."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I've long assumed that I would also rather be ashes than dust. I'd like to think I've lived most of my life burning brightly; I've certainly burnt out a number of times. Only God has kept me from many more! </span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The frenzied and frenetic fiery pace I kept in high school, college, and even seminary (to a lesser extent) probably came straight from my 8th grade teacher's echo of this credo: "Suck the marrow out of life!" I think his quote may have been the first time I heard someone say something that gave me language for what I was already thinking: "Suck the marrow out of life." He described the way a dog will not just eat the meat off a bone but crack it and break it and suck all the marrow out of it, all the nutrients, consume it completely. I still remember him telling us that when our head hit the pillow it should be with a sense of accomplishment, with the knowledge that we had done all we could for the day, maybe with a tinge of exhaustion. The craziest week of my life I averaged between 3 and 4 hours of sleep over 8 days; I had mono a few months later, and slept for 17 hours a day. Ashes, never dust.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">With my senior sermon in mind, I've been re-examining my feelings about this quote. I've had a <i>very</i> difficult time with one of my co-teachers at school. I think things are working themselves slowly out. I don't think I'll ever be friends with this teacher, but at least we are attempting a new pattern of working together with our kids interest in mind, which is not what was happening for the better part of the year, in ways I won't bother to describe.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b>
One thing has recently happened thought that made me just furious. When I heard about it, I immediately came to a decision (as a good EC teacher) that I would simply start to document everything I did, so that I can prove myself to be beyond reproach. I didn't opt for confrontation (I never do). I didn't let it go. I chose a "middle way." I didn't choose to confront my co-teacher in anger like a flash-in-a-pan. I didn't choose to ignore the issue.<br />
<br />
I didn't choose ashes. I didn't choose dust either.<br />
<br />
Now I'm not saying I'm above reproach in any way in this situation. I'm also not even saying that the decision(s) I'm making concerning this situation are all correct. But what I have reflected on is that rather than ashes or dust, I'm choosing to be just what my senior sermon gave me language to do: candle wax. I choose the slow burn. I choose to glow. I choose to be moved with the wind but not extinguished by it. I choose to act, but only as much as I can do at one time rather than trying to do everything all at once. The model I preached about has become for me a <i>via media.</i><br />
<br />
I won't exactly say that this is the Holy Spirit's work, redeeming my sinful tendency to blow up or to hide. I'm not convinced enough that "holy" really describes anything about my situation. I don't really even have any answers right now. But I'm praying and learning and reflecting. Perhaps above all I'm hoping, hoping that a slow burn will flicker brightly, and not be overcome by the darkness.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-79302813250453465232013-02-24T17:22:00.001-05:002013-02-24T17:29:42.315-05:00Perfect Love Casts Out... Procrastination?I have a tendency to procrastinate. I'm much more efficient working on a deadline. Projects that I know about months in advance tend to get my full attention in the last week (or 48 hours) before they are due, no matter how important they are: term papers, sermons, financial paperwork. I have a lot of trouble escaping the tyranny of the everyday, the tyranny of the semi-urgent to deal with the truly important. I actually think the same fear is the reason I can't ever completely clear out my e-mail inbox: I'm afraid, for whatever reason, of completing everything in it. Of being completely caught up. It's a different sort of fear, I think, but it controls my actions nonetheless.<br />
<br />
Needing fear to crack the whip and force me to work definitely impacted my long absence from blogging.<br />
<br />
As I've thought about that this week (in response to working on my loan deferment paperwork and student IEPs at work), I've begun to realize that I'm easily motivated by fear. Fear of failure, fear of public shaming, fear or financial consequences. <br />
<br />
In 1 John the confident assertion leaps off the page: "Perfect love casts out fear." <br />
<br />
What does it mean for me that I can't do my work until I'm afraid of failing? Do I love my work? Or do I love success? Do I work for the Lord, or for human approval? Why do I wait so long to do my IEP prep work? Do I love my students, or just my job / paycheck? <br />
<br />
Perfect love casts out fear. <br />
<br />
Must I have to face my fears before I can overcome them?<br />
<br />
Perfect love casts out fear.<br />
<br />
Can I overcome my fears? How should I pray to overcome my fear? How will my life and work look different when that fear is gone?<br />
<br />
One thing I've wondered is whether or not my thoughts on this topic lean towards some pop-psychology need to be a "self-actualized individual." Should I be totally in control of my own motives and desires and actions? It seems unlikely I can achieve such a state. <br />
<br />
I don't yet have answers, or even direction. What I do have is the collect for the Second Sunday in Lent:<br />
<br />
"O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever."<br />
<br />
In response to the collect, I want my prayer to be: "Father in heaven, have mercy on me for all those things I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart, and have not loved my neighbor as myself. Cast out my fear and help me to work for you with gladness and singleness of heart, being strengthened by your Holy Spirit. Change my heart God, so that I may repent and turn to you. In your perfect love, cast out my fear. Amen."<br />
<br />
<br />Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-79530780994578812952013-02-17T19:14:00.001-05:002013-02-17T19:14:49.408-05:00When Perfection Stands in the Way of CompetenceI got scared of blogging.<br />
<br />
I remember when I was a senior at Houghton and I was following the blogs of a few friends who went to different seminaries from my program. I was excited at first to keep up with their lives, how they seemed to be changing and how excited they were about starting the next track in their lives. I quickly became frustrated: it seemed like their blogs became sermon blogs, and I didn't hear anything else from them except the assignments they were preparing for classes. It wasn't the same feel, and I (for the most part) quit following them.<br />
<br />
When I started this blog in Advent '11, I was determined not to let the same thing happened to me. I wanted to blog at least every other week, to keep the discipline of writing a part of my (spiritual) life. Instead, it became exactly what frustrated me about my former peers: a sermon blog.<br />
<br />
Much more than I expected to, I loved preaching. I loved using / finding / feeling my voice in a community, helping and challenging and maybe even changing people (by God's grace!). I liked to quietly call my community out on some of their ~smaller~ sins. I liked to challenge people's common (mis)perceptions about God. I liked to articulate the unique ways that I saw my life of faith. My dad predicted when I was at Houghton that I would love it: "You've taken all this in like a sponge since you were little, and now you need to start letting some of it out!"<br />
<br />
Loving preaching, I started appreciating my own writing. That should have been good for my blog!<br />
<br />
However, I got a lot of very positive feedback on my preaching as well, from peers AND even from professors. It fed my not-exactly-small vanity. Since I graduated, I've only written once or twice. I've attempted and thought about writing many more times, but never actually sat down to write. My mind was working, but I wasn't applying myself.<br />
<br />
Just recently I've started putting all this together. Essentially, I've realized I quit writing here because I'm not putting up material that has been checked and edited... and most importantly, that has been praised. In my vain (note the double meaning here) desire to be a good writer - to be a perfect writer - I've become a complete non-writer!<br />
<br />
Perfection stands in the way of competence. The vain desire to be perfect paralyzes effort. The need for praise inhibits self-esteem. Fear of failure, or worse yet, success, feeds laziness. I'm struggling with all of this: in my writing, in my teaching, in my relationships, in my prayer life. In the words of an inspirational video that made its way through TFA circles at the beginning of the year, I need to give myself permission to suck. I need to be willing to try and fail. I need to embrace the laughter that came after the following exchange during my CPE:<br />
<br />
Supervisor: "What's the problem with being wrong?"<br />
Me: "You... I'd... I'd be wrong!"<br />
*~laughter~*<br />
<br />
Well, a new season of the church year, a new commitment. I commit to writing here once a week.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-53574958606645010142012-08-19T17:09:00.000-04:002012-08-19T17:09:10.341-04:00Articulating a FearI am a creature of pride.<br />
<br />
I dearly love to rest my laurels on what I have done, have already accomplished, rather than prepare myself for difficult work I will have to do in the present. Never mind the future. I can easily imagine some parts of the future: working for TFA, getting a degree from ECU, being ordained. I cannot imagine the nearer, more difficult future: teaching content I don't know, running IEP meetings, staying up late into the night. It's the same way I find myself feeling about fiction: I love the beginning of a book more than the end. I like to have more books than I possibly have time to read (and graduate school encouraged me in this!). I prefer potential energy to sustained effort. It isn't at all the case that I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather be a matchhead than ashes!<br />
<br />
When I was in high school, I thought of myself as a counselor. Endless patience, untold wisdom, slow to speak and quick to listen. I am not so patient now, for I have a much higher opinion of myself, a more inflated view of my self-worth. I am much more important to me than I ever was then. Is it ironic that this should be a product of other's generous investment of love in me?<br />
<br />
What draws me most into ministry now is the task of preaching. Boy, do I think I have an awful lot to say! And yet, my experience of preaching is that yes, I do. I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the preaching I have been privileged to perform. Many have seen in me a gift and cared enough to name it to my soul, supporting my self-worth but inflating my pride. Oh, how vain I am! Who shall rescue me from this body of sin?<br />
<br />
Like Paul, I <u>know</u> the answer. Yet I have not achieved it. Nor can I.<br />
<br />
I brought up preaching because I believe that I have much to say. My dad first pointed this out to me when he told me I was like a sponge: I've been soaking this stuff in for so long that now it will come out in a veritable wave. I do have a lot to say... to myself.<br />
<br />
My own preaching exercises a powerful hold over my own imagination. Surely, pride is wrapped up in that, but it has come as an unbidden dream on a regular basis. Even in high school, when I was certain I was not called - because I had never heard the voice of one calling - I still imagined myself preaching. What drove that dream was the one that drove my patience as well: I wanted other people to be happy. I wanted them to feel loved... by me? By God. I wanted to love God.<br />
<br />
When I preach, I find out I do love God. I experience the pull of God's love into the love of Father for Son, caught up in that mystic sweet communion on interpenetrating, mysterious, hold-nothing-back fully-knowing-fully-known love. It is a grace that stays with me: remembering my Advent sermon - there is a love stronger than death! - still has the power to bring me to tears. So too does asking the question "How do you say goodbye?"<br />
<br />
But now I need strength. I need self-emptying grace. I need, more than anything, humility and patience. And courage. I need, to quote myself again, the fully human power that Jesus showed us from the cross: the power to rush headlong into darkness and death for the sake of others. <br />
<br />
I can imagine an ending because the end is when I can make sense again. <br />
<br />
I need grace for the present because it is, of course, not about me at all.Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-73656192255406379632012-07-16T12:27:00.000-04:002012-07-16T12:27:15.934-04:00All Christianities Need Each Other<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html?smid=fb-share</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The above article is one that raced around facebook for a few days and at least one friend asked me directly to respond to. I'm certain I could say much more, but I wanted to at least post my initial thoughts (also visible on her facebook page) out here and see if I get any more traffic :-) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I'll mostly focus my response on this quote: "Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily
thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often
been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of
health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message." There comes
a point at which it becomes, arguably, impossible to find and locate a
"true" or "pure" Christianity. I remember at Houghton a
guest lecturer claiming that "holiness" and "justice" in
the OT were the same word (same concept maybe, but definitely different
words...). But I think that many conservative / liberal divides can be reduced
to the different pursuits that they have, conservatives for holiness and
liberals for justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Along the same lines, my personal
description of "liberal" Christianity is grounded in my Houghton
study of "Enlightenment" v. "Post-modernity." Everyone gets
angry at the Enlightenment for exalting a glorified, (supposedly) neutral
version of capital R Reason over experience or, in conservative circles,
scripture. Liberal Christianity, to my mind, has swung the pendulum far in the
other direction: nothing can contradict my capital E Experience, not a
(supposedly) neutral vision of Reason (that is little more than rich, educated,
white men's cultural values) and certainly not Scripture. If scripture is found
to be inconsistent with my experience, then what is true must be what I have
experienced. The exaltation of the individual over tradition, of experience
over reason or of scripture continues to progress further and further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now, the question that looms in my
mind is, to refer to my first comment, can you actually find a "pure"
balance between these things? I think rather not. I have been deeply moved by
the profound generosity and deep love of those who my conservatives friends
would consider not "real" Christians. I have been supported and
sheltered by the conservative Christians whose vision of true faith and
holiness has shaped me and helped me grow into whatever it is that I am. I can
use reason, scripture, tradition or experience to find healthy love for God and
desire to serve God's kingdom among either side of the so-called
"divide." But, again, all I need to do is turn to my original post:
our scripture and our tradition witness to both of these strains being present
and even appropriate. Most of the prophets and even the book of James have a
lot to say about why we need to work for justice and that the pursuit of
holiness should take a backseat (this is the path TEC sees itself on). The
priestly strains of the Old Testament and a lot of Pauline material emphasizes
holiness rather than justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the way that I think about
denominationalism. No one denomination has all the pieces of biblical faith
truly or even fully or even adequately represented. I am deeply grateful that I
grew up in the Holiness movement, inspired by worship and humility (that I
arguably never had much of) in the presence of God. I grew deeper in faith
because I encountered Pentecostalism and new forms of prayer and even speaking
and praying in tongues, practices I admire and respect. I landed in TEC because
I found set of trinitarian doctrines and practices in the Anglican Communion
that have shaped and changed me, my understanding of God and of the world and
human relationships. I'm even slowly coming to be thankful for the ways that
being in a hierarchical Episcopal church are shaping my views of authority. All
of these strands are important pieces of the faith to which the Bible
witnesses. No denomination does all of them well. I for one am glad that I have
gotten to spend time at IHOP (KC) as well as YDS as well as Houghton College
and a whole slew of Wesleyan youth camps where I have been exposed to and
deeply shaped by all of them. While I see excesses and flaws in each of them, I
wouldn't dare presume to invalidate any of them as being Christian because I
see honest, faithful people pursuing God in each of them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-83075410907458510252012-07-06T11:26:00.000-04:002012-07-06T11:28:59.137-04:00ControlOn reflection, I'm surprised that it took me this long to get to this point. Starting this blog, I hoped to post once every two weeks. I didn't meet that goal at all, but I did at least post once a month until May. That's the better part of half a year.<br />
<br />
I have to confess now, though, that I'm disappointed with myself. Even though I wrote an entire sermon on transitions and interruptions (see "The Pruning Shears of God" post), a lot of my disciplines went out the window in this last month and a half. I could make a lot of excuses, and maybe even give a couple of reasons. But there have been so many times that TFA has given me excellent reflection material that I have failed to put up here it is embarrassing. I have thought several times about posting those things, and just haven't applied myself to doing so. Now I wish I had.<br />
<br />
This is going to be one of my greatest growing edges as I transition into this new phase of my life: taking initiative. Taking control over my own disciplines.<br />
<br />
If self-control is a muscle, it is one I have developed in some ways. I meet my academic deadlines. I respond to <i>most</i> e-mails within a couple of days. I get myself up for church every Sunday morning. I call my wife every night and text her every morning. <br />
<br />
In other ways, though, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit I wish were more of a vegetable I childishly leave on my plate. Of the last thirty days since heading to TFA Induction / Institute, I have done morning prayer maybe six or seven times. I have read scripture a handful more than that, in the evenings when my work is done early (rare) <i>and</i> my roommate isn't around (rarer still). <br />
<br />
I have allowed, like so many others, the places I have lived and studied done the structural work of my spiritual life for me. In college I had chapel, Koinonia and Mercy Seat to guide my weekly reading and study. In seminary I had daily morning prayer, daily chapel, and a whole hose of other gatherings with friends. Now I have only the random, unsought blessings of surprising conversations with new friends with whom I share a common and comfortable understanding. Yet even in those moments of unexpected joy, little intimacy is shared. I have been so blessed to share such depths with friends in the last several years that the intentionality that provides the structure for that deep intimacy has become subconscious. If I am to continue to grow in the next two years, I need the Spirit to grant me the self-control to re-embrace that same intentionality: within new friendships, within ministry opportunities, within myself.<br />
<br />
This is my prayer of supplication as I finish Institute this coming week and as I transition yet again towards NC. But along with it goes a prayer of thanksgiving for today, for allowing myself to be interrupted from morning prayer (I was one collect away from finishing) and accepting an invitation to come to Starbucks, where I'm writing right now. Perhaps I internalized my sermon more than I thought :-)Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0Fondren Library, 6100 Main St, Houston, TX 77005, USA29.7168767 -95.402326229.7030862 -95.4220672 29.7306672 -95.382585200000008tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-36587565045979311982012-05-06T20:19:00.000-04:002012-05-06T20:19:51.117-04:00The Pruning Shears of God<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jesus said “I am the vine, and my Father
is the vinegrower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am the true vine,
and you are the branches.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">May I speak in the name of the risen
Christ. Amen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This Thursday, I took a final exam –
hopefully my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">final</i> exam – at the
Divinity School,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Fittingly, I think, for a class called
“Transitional Moments in Western Christian History, Part II.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In the first half of that class, the
final exam had an essay question on it:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What makes a moment transitional?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s a question that Greg Ganssle
knocked out of the park last week with his front-porch analogy:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transition is not unusual.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transition // is the new normal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The epistle reading from 1 John is
trying to re-wire our hearts for a new normal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beloved</i>,
let us <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> one another, because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> is from God; everyone who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loves</i> is born of God and </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">knows God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whoever does not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> does not know God, for <u>God is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i></u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i>, not that we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loved</i>
God but that he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loved</i> us and sent his
Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In just four verses, John uses the word
love ten times.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Twenty-five times in the reading for
today alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t bother to count
the whole book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">John wants the normal setting of our
hearts to be love for God, love for each other,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Love all the time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Including times of transition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In fact, reading 1 John through the lens
of transition goes a step further.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It isn’t just that we should love all
the time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It isn’t that we have to maintain our love
through times of transition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Love demands that we undergo radical
transition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The real heart of love is not what we
think we have for God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The real heart of love is what God has
for us, what God did for us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The real heart of love is that God loved
us first, and sent his only Son into the world </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That we might live through him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Love demanded reconciliation for our
sins.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Love became an atoning sacrifice for our
sins.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Love is incarnation, the word of God,
the love of God made flesh <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for us</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If you want to know about transition, hear
these words from Phillipians:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He did not consider equality with God –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Which he had –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Something to be exploited.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He emptied himself,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Taking the very nature of a servant,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Becoming obedient to death, even death
on a cross.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Our faith is founded on the greatest
transitions of all time,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The transition of love:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Incarnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crucifixion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ascension.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Ascension brings with it some pretty
incredible transitions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The book of Acts in one sense is the
Acts of the Apostles,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A model for the church in transition
that we could very easily imitate:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sharing all things in common,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Giving to all who have need,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Gathering for prayer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But in another sense the book of Acts is
a more singular Act of the Holy Spirit,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">An unrelenting presence of unexpected
love sustaining this new body called the church </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Through a whirlwind time of transition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Book of Acts catalogues that
fractured sense of time when every follower of Jesus</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Struggles to figure out what it means follow
Jesus with Jesus not around.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Holy Spirit somehow shows up in the
middle of their struggle,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Stretching and expanding their
communities to new forms, new definitions, even new locations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the things that makes transition
so difficult for us is that transition marks a time when we don’t </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">know what we
can expect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I still remember the words of a
professor during my orientation at the divinity school:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“If you are exhausted, that is ok.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The basic neural pathways that form your
base expectations for everyday living are all being upended.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Where’s the bathroom?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where’s the water fountain?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When are we going to eat?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where even are we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s going on?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Adjusting to a new time, a new place, a
new set of relationships takes a lot of work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transition is exhausting, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Because we don’t know what we can expect
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Or even what we should expect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve always been struck by the question
John Bonk asks about the gospels:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">[And forgive me, John, for misquoting
you so terribly]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What are we left with of Jesus life if
we take away all the interruptions?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jesus’ life on earth – his incarnational
life of love, the greatest transition ever known –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Is constantly filled with
interruptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heal me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Son of David have mercy on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who is this woman?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teacher, we caught this woman in the act of
adultery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should we pay taxes to
Caesar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teacher, what marvelous
stones!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These people are hungry, and we
have no food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lazarus has died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can I enter the kingdom of heaven?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jesus is always getting interrupted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And he always responds with patience,
letting the other that he encounters set the agenda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If our faith is founded on the greatest
transition of all time,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the marks of discipleship should
be a healthy relationship with transition, with interruption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the marks of our discipleship
should be our ability to respond to interruptions by patiently letting others
set the agenda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the marks of our discipleship
should be </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That we think transition is normal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Philip gives us a great example of this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What’s that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walk down the wilderness road?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Go over to the chariot with the foreigner
in it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Explain to me what I’m reading!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">By the way, we’re just gonna drive this
chariot around a little bit while you explain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What is there to prevent me from being
baptized?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK. Let’s do it!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Poof!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’re in Azotus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guess I’ll just do
some preaching then.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Philip embraces transition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He isn’t surprised by it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He isn’t fazed by interruption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He’s the perfect example of how we
should apply those words from 1 Peter:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Be prepared, in season and out of
season, to give an account of the hope which is in you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In season and out of season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transitions are going to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are normal for a disciple of Jesus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Times and seasons are constantly
changing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What has to remain constant is our
ability to <u>listen</u> to the Holy Spirit, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To <u>speak</u> of the hope that we have
in Jesus,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To <u>know</u> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that we are rooted in the love of God our
Father.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">St. John’s Episcopal Church at Orange
and Humphrey is at a new time of transition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">St. John’s is in a time when we don’t
know what to expect,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And we don’t even know what we should
expect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">St. John’s is in a time when what was
normal for the last few years has been interrupted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The temptation is going to be
intentional about setting our own schedules,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Trying to figure out exactly what <u>we
want</u> and exactly who <u>we want to be</u>,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To create a plan of action and to follow
it through,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To set our own agenda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That kind of thinking, of community
awareness, of intentionality has its place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But Brothers and sisters, we need to be
cautious about walking down that broadly defined road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Today I articulate as challenge to all
of us – myself included, in my own time of post-graduation transition –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The challenge to slow down,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To pay attention to the things that
annoy us -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">About ourselves, our communities, the
relationships we have, the tasks we don’t want to do –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The things that interrupt the lives we
want to lead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I call that challenge listening for the
Holy Spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We have before us the challenge to act
with patience,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To respond to every difficult question
that comes before us</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To let other people set the agenda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In this time of transition,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We must ask for and let our hearts be
re-wired to a new normal,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To the very heart of love that is God’s
very self, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The mystery of faith: Jesus Christ
crucified, risen, and coming again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transitions and interruptions are
challenges to our expectations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When we listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When we let ourselves abide in the
life-changing love of Jesus Christ,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transitions and interruptions remind us
that our lives and our communities are not / about / us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transitions and interruptions become the
very acts of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Transitions and interruptions are the
pruning shears of God,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reminding us that we are the branches,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Grafted onto the true vine,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Who wanders and grows not on its own, or
according to its own path,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But is itself pruned and guided by the
very hand and love of God the Father.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Amen.</span></div>Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-19590682730094090032012-04-23T20:42:00.000-04:002012-04-23T20:42:34.615-04:00How Do You Say Goodbye?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">May I speak in the name of Christ who sends the sweet, sweet Spirit to this place.<span> </span>Amen.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">How do you say goodbye?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Imagine.<br />
.<br />
.<br />
.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Spending three years of your life with the same group of people.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You’ll see them at their best and their worst.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You’ll be annoyed at them. Laugh at their jokes. Watch them cry,<span> </span>across the room. Pray for them.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
Get angry at them sometimes.<span> </span>Maybe hate them.<span> </span>Feel rejected by them.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You’ll be desperate for solitude, for silence, for personal space.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You’ll be so lonely you can’t stand it.<span> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You’ll know every detail of their personality.<span> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
You might know something of their faith.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
If you’re lucky, you’ll treasure them always.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">The thing about goodbye is,<span> </span>you can see it from a long way off.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
But you don’t really believe it will come.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><br />
In my mind, it’s kind of like death that way.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Right after graduating college, my choir toured Europe.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Some simple goodbyes were easy.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">“You won’t see me for a little while.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">After a little while you’ll see me again.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">My best friend Ryan was on the choir tour. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">We saw goodbye, but didn’t believe it would come.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">8 hours on the plane from Rome to JFK.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">12 hours from JFK to Houghton, and I have never been sicker.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Packing until 3 am.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">A flight at 8, an hour a way.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Up at 5 to shower, still sick.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Ryan put my suitcase in the trunk at 6.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I opened my mouth to say the words,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">And all I could do was cry.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">There are certain things you can’t just say to certain people.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">You have to use the wrong words </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">To get at what you really mean.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Good-bye.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I love you.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Jesus can’t shut up in the gospel of John.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">You <i>know</i> where I’m going.<span> </span>There are many mansions there.<span> </span>I’ll send the <u>comforter</u>.<span> </span>I am the vine, You are the branches.<span> </span>Abide in me.<span> </span>Greater love has no man than this: that he lay his life down for his friend.<span> </span>You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.<span> </span>I pray, Father, that they all may be one.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Prophecy?<span> </span>Philsophy?<span> </span>Theology, metaphysics?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">No.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Jesus is human like the rest of us,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Afraid.<span> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Hurting.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">He’s trying to say goodbye.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">He’s trying to say I love you.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I count it a deep tragedy that in my three years here, I have heard </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">And I have used </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">All the wrong words.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I have only said the words “I love you” to a handful of people.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I have only heard them from a handful of people.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">And believe me, both saying them and hearing them is terrifying.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Those words are powerful.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">It costs us something to say them.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">No wonder we use the wrong words!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">It is so much easier to only hint at what we really mean.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">I think we die a little bit to ourselves each time we say them.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">It is any wonder I strain so hard to hear the calling placed on my life? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Is it any wonder I strain so hard to hear God’s voice saying “Shane, I love you?”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">The right message is covered up in the wrong words.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">The problem with saying good bye is that what we really mean is “I love you,”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">But we never found the time or the words to say it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">My prayer for all of us –</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Seniors coming to graduation,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Middlers and Juniors with lots of time left before their final goodbye.,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Inspired by the sweet sweet spirit in this place,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Is that we find the times and the places to say “I love you” to each other,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">To die to ourselves.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">To let the sweet, sweet Spirit fill us with God’s new life.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">With God’s very self.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Then, goodbye can be simple.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Because love will already be so,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>So,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>So very deep.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "High Tower Text","serif";">Amen.</span></span></div>Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-85703838626383768962012-04-16T20:06:00.000-04:002012-04-16T20:06:32.216-04:00Easter 2: Rehabilitating Thomas, Rehabilitating Evangelism<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">May I speak in the name of the Risen Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who does the church belong to?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I interviewed Daniel Webster over the weekend, the Canon for mission in the diocese of Maryland.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He spends time working with congregations trying to help them become healthy,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Healthy enough that they can begin to share their spiritual narratives with each other,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So that they can start to DREAM:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do Real Evangelism Almost Mindlessly. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He says he sees a troubling split between two different ideas about why the church does the work of evangelism:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">His own is DREAM.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What he sees far more often is the dedicated few trying to play the GODsquad:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">GODsquad: the Grow or Die squad. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The DREAM team doesn't have to work to share their faith.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It flows from who they are: out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The GODsquad is filled with doubt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How will we survive? What will become of us if we do not grow? How can we pay our bills?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas was a disciple filled, so the story usually goes, with doubt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unless I see him,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unless I touch him,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unless I put my fingers in his side and his hands,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I will not believe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I cannot believe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas takes a lot of flak every year come Eastertide for his doubts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But what's interesting to me about Thomas's so-called "doubt" isn't the resurrection.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It's what Thomas has to teach us about community, about equality, about evangelism.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First of all, can you really blame Thomas?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">His friends were talking about resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From the dead.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You know, like, when people die.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Get buried.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They don’t usually come back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s not that Thomas doesn’t have faith.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas, perhaps more clearly than any other disciple, knows what resurrection would mean.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The women who encounter the empty tomb rush away, terrified.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mary Magdalene thinks the risen Christ is just the gardener.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The disciples </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">even after Jesus breaks in on their closed and locked room,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And appears to them in the flesh,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And they themselves touch his wounds</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They are shaken, and fearful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Their whole world came apart when Jesus was crucified.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reality itself came apart when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After the crucifixion, the followers of Jesus went underground, afraid that they would meet the same fate as their beloved.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After the resurrection, the followers of Jesus stayed underground</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Afraid they would meet the same fate as their beloved.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas is the one, the first one, to immediately proclaim what resurrection means:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My Lord and My God!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas’s faith in Jesus was deep, powerful, unwavering.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But he had to know it was Jesus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas is the first disciple, after the resurrection, to make the intellectual shift from social movement to theology, from Messiah to “My Lord and My God!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a way – with apologies to St. Peter – Thomas might be the true head fo the church.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He understands what resurrection means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He understands it first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He understands it most clearly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas might have doubted for a moment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the result of his doubt is the most profound faith,.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most sublime theology,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most mindless evangelism.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">His confession is ripped from his mouth by his unique experience of Jesus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the last act of the disciples in John’s gospel,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because now the story must shift to the book of Acts, the story of the church.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This shift does not happen without Thomas,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who brought the disciples out of their cave,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Their hushed and fearful locked-inner rooms,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The true knowledge of what Jesus’ resurrection really means.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And prepared them for the DREAM space of evangelism.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Canon Daniel Webster <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>describes the difference between DREAMteam and GODsquad this way:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When he was the rector of a tiny, struggling church in the Diocese of New York he had a secretary.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The secretary came in one day and said she'd been asked why she spent so much time at church.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her answer was that she was the secretary and the treasurer, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the church’s bills had to get paid.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What a loss, he says, of an evangelism opportunity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why didn’t she talk about the eighteen twelve-step programs that met there,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The food ministry they have making sandwiches for the homeless,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The fact that this church staying open saves lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We saved lives, at that church.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shouldn’t that be what we answer when anyone asks us anything about it?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Save.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who does the church belong to?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I said a minute ago that Thomas is perhaps the true head of the church,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s first post-resurrection theologian.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In our first Sunday after Easter, our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does the church belong to the ones who know what resurrection means?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does the church belong to us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If today’s reading from Acts doesn’t scare you out of wanting to own the church, just wait a couple of weeks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No one claimed private ownership of their possessions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everyone shared everything in common.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So Luke would have us believe, there was no poverty within the early church.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Poverty wasn’t even a category they thought of, because they were not concerned with possessions, with wealth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They were not concerned with ownership.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They were concerned with fellowship.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is it too much to suggest that they were guided by Thomas’ leadership?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That the one who insisted on a radical equality of experience –</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I want to touch his wounds also – </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Also insisted on a radical equality of possession, of wealth, of fellowship?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The question “Who does the church belong to?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is closely related to the question “Who would miss the church if it were gone?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Certainly we would.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But our circle of fellowship has to extend to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everyone</i> who comes through these doors – </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not just the people who come here on Sunday morning – </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We need to answer the questions “Why are we still open? and “Why are we here”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With the reality that Family and Children’s Agency needs us,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That the 12 step programs that meet here <u>save lives</u>,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We need to fully become a DREAM team and not a GOD squad – </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We need to participate in God’s mission rather than the church’s mission, to borrow a phrase from Bishop Douglas –</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maybe then we will understand, like Thomas, the incredible evangelistic force of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maybe then we will know that the Church belongs to everyone,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To all of us,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But really most of all to the one who would miss it the most if it were gone:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our bridegroom, Jesus Christ</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We are here</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> to share in God’s fellowship,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The fellowship which 1 John tells us has been from the beginning and is now is the same that always will be,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The love that Jesus Christ shares with his Father in heaven through the power of the Holy Spirit,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The love that is God that is very life itself, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The risen life that insists on radical equality of fellowship with everyone we meet, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With everyone who comes through these doors.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As we approach this table, unworthy even to gather up its crumbs,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">May God make us worthy to know the risen Jesus as our Lord and our God,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And to go forth in the power of the Spirit witness to how we, like Thomas, have been changed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Amen.</span></div>Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4917634060099472170.post-58452828446300202452012-04-05T11:39:00.001-04:002013-03-02T21:05:40.438-05:00Tenebrae: Service of ShadowsHoly Week.<br />
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I keep hearing people say "Happy Easter!" and my only thought is: <i>Wow. It's still a long time until Easter</i>.<br />
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Last night we observed the service of Tenebrae. Normally a service of shadows cast from extinguished candles and the anguish of Jeremiah's <i>Lamentations</i>, we combined the structure of the service with words and images from the Civil Rights movement, the Arab Spring, and Hurricane Katrina. The result was an overwhelming cascade of images and emotions forcing us all to consider how the world we live in is a world <i>of </i>crucifixion, not a world of delight in which Jesus happened to be crucified.<br />
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The following is the (207 word) reflection I gave.<br />
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(It makes more sense if you have the context of the readings from the whole service. It has even more power if you get the context of my other Chapel Ministers who gave reflections as well. One student asked how long (if) we had planned our reflections together, because they were so coherent and harmonious. We hadn't, actually. We called it groupness, teamwork, truth, the Holy Spirit.)<br />
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What was shocking to me was my experience of preaching. I was saying to my wife last night that normally I (think I) preach more like a poet. Emphasis on breath and pause and silence; attention to the specific meanings of words and their interplay. That is what made my Advent sermon so special to me, was that I exercised my poetic gifts that often remain dormant in the rush of hundreds of other things. You can judge my poetry for it's value separately from considering that it has been since high school one of the chief ways I process faith and emotion.<br />
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Last night's experience of preaching - even though it was very short - was one where I felt completely out of control of my delivery. I felt something like anger coursing through me as I spoke. There was a force, a power, something HUGE within me as I delivered the word. My wife suggested that it was the Holy Spirit taking control of my words, and I was glad someone else reflected that back to me. It was incredible, frightening, and I'll be processing those feelings for a long time. Perhaps it is the mystical experience I have in some ways craved for a long time as a confirmation of the calling I have claimed but never, in the literal sense, heard.<br />
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<b>Tenebrae: Nocturn 3 </b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“God has allowed me to go up to the mountain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I’ve seen the Promised Land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I may not get there with you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Moses saw the Promised Land from the mountain, yet he died and did not enter into it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stephen saw the heavens open, even between the flying stones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jesus was willing to be betrayed, to be given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jesus became obedient to death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It is easy to believe there is a promised land.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It is quite another thing to see it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It is easy to speak of God’s power.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Resurrection. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">HALLE-</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It is not the time to speak of God’s power.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Now is the time to be <u>dissatisfied</u>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Now is the time to become incarnate</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As Jesus,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> to the world of suffering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Incarnational love is not what we choose instead of death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Choosing to love in the world of crucifixion is choosing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">TO</b> die.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Now is the time to speak of the most awesome human power, revealed by Jesus himself: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The ability to rush headlong into the darkness of death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">To <i>enter into</i> the Promised Land.</span></div>
Barefoot Pilgrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01957142976106553697noreply@blogger.com0