A Poem: Behold

(Hat tip to JD Walt www.jdwalt.com)

BEHOLD

A command not to look
Instead you must see
Or not a command but a plea
Behold... Pay attention

The virgin shall conceive
Shepherds and stars
Inkeepers, Magi travel afar
Behold... Pay attention

A homeless savior
For a homeless world

Friends and Suicide

To Tyler Clementi 18, Seth Walsh 13, Asher Brown 13, Raymond Chase 19, Caleb Nolt 14...

In a better world, I bet we could have been friends, we could have been best friends. I am sure I would have delighted in the miracle of each of you. Had I known you.

The truth is though, I don't know you nor did your tormentors. They failed to recognize your special creation, the God created image fused into your very skin, the love that formed the arches and structures of your soul. They did not see that you were a child of God, and a person of worth. In a better world, I could pity them that they never really met you... but I do not live in a better world, and all I feel towards them is anger... all I feel is pain. There is a mission to be done, a miracle God ordained for you to accomplish, a place in the world that will be forever empty because of the loss of you. We never will know how the world would have been changed through your life journey. It was simply taken from us and suffocated in a never ending wave or personal abuse and hate. I am so sorry the world did not savor the mystery of you. it is truly our loss.

We are in so many ways responsible for what happened to you. Though you were loved by many of your family and friends, completely and truly, there were far to many of the rest of us who buried your pain under a deep blanket of apathy and ignorance. I'm sorry that the generations before you failed to create a better world. Forgive us, we don't know what we are doing.

I wish I could say that I didn't feel some anger towards you also. I hate that you left this wide world without you. I hate it for your family, and the people who loved you. I cannot imagine what they go through each day... but this pain and this anger will diminish. It will falter because I also understand. Your families understand. Your friends understand. The suffering was overwhelming, the loneliness too intense. You got lost, we all know that that can happen. When you see our anger I hope that you understand that at these moments there is more than enough anger to go around.

I also promise you this... We will try harder to teach people they are valuable. We will work harder to love them. We will reach still further in hopes that one fine morning, you and all those like you, these God created God loved souls, will be so understood, so valued, that they will accomplish all life had for them to accomplish, and thereby transform the world. We will fight the evils and oppression, the bullies and those who hate. We will lay aside the old weapons of war and discord, and fight instead with, beauty, peace, truth, and righteousness. This is the new thing that will grow from the ashes of this tragedy. In this renewed quest towards love, we will reclaim the loss of your life. We will turn these Good Friday Realities, into Easter Glories. This is my promise to you.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, Yes... They will rest from their labors.

The Lord's Prayer (Revisited)

Our Father,
Who dwells in joy eternal,
Your light is holiness.
Your presence our horizon
May our actions here one earth be guided the by your desires
that here too we may taste eternal joy.
Provide for our life, and forgive us the ways of death,
As we forgive those who have dealt death to us.
Guide us by the light of your holiness
Save us from the messenger of darkness.
For yours is the presence, the heartbeat, and the breath of eternity.
AMEN.


Okay so I wanted to try to interpret the Lord's Prayer in a new way. It is quite difficult... Nor could I ever hope to capture the majesty and grandure of Our Lord, I just wanted to try to recite back the content of my soul as it encounter's this prayer of Jesus. Try it yourself and see what happens.

To you...

(This is a blog written for one person, who will never see this blog, whom I pray for on a daily basis.)

When I pray, and when I think of you, My biggest wish is that you would choose to embrace your life, to realize your giftedness, to appreciate who you are, and what you have. I pray for you, that you will find yourself.

I pray this above all things for you because the real you is lost under insecurity and bitterness. You are not a frightened little animal some have told you you are. You are strong and free, capable of fighting back the setting sun, and force the sun to rise again. You are capable of a new and better day, a new and better harvest, a better days work, and a more contented self.

Now, you know only want and need and sadness, my prayer for you is that you find joy.

The Star Set

When someone tells you,
Try and you will reach the stars.
They forget to tell you that the stars
Like you, are dying.

Frostbite

See the sky here
Stars and raindrops
Barking dogs
Farm equipment
Fields that go on for days.

And there is frost here.
Killing the flowers
Wind that runs unimpeded to my doorstep
Here where the sky hates the sun who hates the earth
The earth in her turn pushes back with dust
The sky hates the dust and we start again
Hatred grows faster than the flowers here

The complexities of this place are lazy.
I don't care to sort them out.
Because they are all the same
Sky, sun, and earth,
All the same.

Renaissance

I am in desperate need of a renaissance... a woed that means "Rebirth" from the french "ri" meaning "again" and "nascere" meaning Birth.

This need for something new from the ashes of the old is why I am glad it is Easter. My poetry is flat, my preaching is flat, my days are long... I need the light of the resurrection to shine forth in my life. I was reading through my earlier blog posts and I have to face facts... something has been lost. Something is diminished and missing. Something important has been covered over.

And so I ask... that this Easter would be a renaissance... a rebirth, a new imagining... Lord grant me these things that I may better praise you... to reach higher... to life my head into the heavens, my pen into the cosmos and my heart into heaven itself. AMEN.

Ash Wednesday...

So sitting near the altar in the church today is a chrystal bowl filled with ashes and anointing oil. It is the remenant of Ash Wednesday Services in which we as the church remember the imminent reality of death. The reality that one day, in accordance with God's will, God will call all of us to himself to give an accounting of our lives.

How thankful I am to be alive in Christ no matter what happens. To rest solely in the grace he has afforded me in the cross. This places me in a situation of utter need and complete helplessness. Abandonement of self and ability before God. Only he can save me, only his mercy remains.

From dust you came, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the gospel.

Try this on for size...

Hey everyone... I thought you might like to check out my latest project. I'm writing a book called, "They Shall Hide Behind God" - It's about the fear that many Christian people face when they come into contact with either change or our culture... this is the first paragraph... the seed from which I hope a mighty literary tree will form. I hope you like it:

THE WAR WITHIN -- In 1863 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his famous poem, “Christmas Bells”. It was a poem that would later be put to music and sung as a Christmas Carol detailing the deep inner struggle of the author. On one hand, the ringing church bells echo with the peaceful message of Christmas, on the other clamoring just as loudly and begging for attention is the violence of the world. Despite the constancy of the Christian message, and the continual reminders brought on by “a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on Earth good will to men” the author finds the promise the Christ failing in the face of the cruel realities of war.

Wyoming

Dry
Tall Realities
Stone Epiphanies
Vulture Song and Lonliness

But there's Beer
And Cactus Water
Sours the stomach
So Drink the sand
dirt
gravel

Feast the distant horizon
Starving for a quiet God
Rock will be your prayers

Ten Miles From Normal

If you head South on State Road 13
After you swerve at Swayzee
stopping before the freakshow (Elwood)
You'll arrive at Normal, Indiana.

You always knew normal was in Indiana.
Right next to Gas City.

Cause we all get gas...
What could be more normal than that?

Not alot happens in Normal.
Nothing unusual. Nothing strange.
The houses are grey, the fields are green.
The sky is blue. Unless it rains.

Normal is pervasive. Benign. Mundane.
Everything is typical there.
Exactly what you would expect.

It goes on for ten miles
Twenty ordinary leagues.
A hundred ordinary leagues.

Normal married it's high school sweetheart.
Normal has 2.5 children.
Normal watches American Idol.
It's borders are poorly defined.

But I'm not from around here.
So I'm lonely.

Brave New World

So I have a cell phone... a wii, an iPod Touch... I can access facebook at all times and places. I just used Twitter for the first time sending out my first "Tweet". I can type in Koala eating bamboo into YouTube and have video footage of Koalas eating bamboo.. and I remember atari.

My favorite Wii Game is called Wii Music in which I conduct and orchestra and am scored on how well I kept time. I can pretend that I can play any instrument. It's amazing and I am even more asounded by how in just one lifetime, we moved from cursors and pong, to three dimensional game environments.

The world is new... and old simultaneously.

Excerpt: Chris Cleave's Book "Little Bee"

On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking. Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make and agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? That will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

The Boat Didn't Sink--Peter Did

So many times I have heard pastors preach on the topic of Peter walking on the water with Jesus. So many times I have heard that "If you want to get the miracle, you have to get out of the boat." However, we don't seem to notice that Peter is the only person in the story who gets rebuked for a lack of faith. Jesus says nothing to the disciples who remained in the boat but instead lifts Peter from that water and tells him he lacks faith.

It seems that the prevailing way of understanding this passage in our culture is to look on Peter as the hero of the tale. He is after all the one who is doing something. We are an action oriented society. It is the "movers and shakers" that get things done. However is this not a distinctively western reading of the text?
After all, isn't there a sense here that Peter is yet again trying to separate himself from the flock? Trying to be the standout disciple? In our western culture we always praise people for doing rather than being, succeeding, rather than abiding. Though these things are not always mutually exclusive it does seem to me that in Peter's case, a deeper sense of reflection might be in order.
I think if we examine Peter's movements throughout the story of Scripture we will begin to see how the episode on the waters was yet another example of Peter's failure to believe Jesus.

Let's begin with Peter's calling in Luke 5. In Luke 4:38 Jesus heals Peter’s mother in law after preaching in the synagogue and in chapter 5 Peter is coming in from fishing all night. Jesus tells Peter to cast once more into deep water and Peter’s first reaction is to complain. However, he does as Jesus told him and catches a miraculous catch of fish. It is interesting that Jesus, who had already proven himself in healing Peter’s mother in law, is not immediately believed by Peter, but he does obey and receives the blessing of obedience. He sees himself for what he is, a sinful man.

His next lesson comes in the aforementioned boat experience contained in Matthew 14. Jesus comes to the disciples who are traveling on a stormy sea walking on the water. The disciples are afraid that the figure coming through the rain is a ghost. Jesus tells the disciples not to be afraid, that it is he coming to them on the waters. Peter however, has to see it to believe it… “Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water. “ So Peter walks out on the water, only to sink when the experience overwhelms him. Jesus tell him, “You of little faith…” This is his common refrain whenever the disciples fail to understand or believe what Jesus has to say. (Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8)

A mere two chapters later, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter responds correctly, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” Jesus praises Peter and begins to explain what being the Christ means, that he will suffer and die at the hands of sinful men. Peter takes it upon himself to rebuke Jesus and in turn is harshly rebuked by Jesus, “Get thee behind me Satan, you have not the things of God in mind, but the things of men.”

Lest we forget, John 13 and the Last Supper, Jesus washes the disciples feet. It is Peter who tries to stop Jesus. “No Lord, it is I who should be washing your feet!” Jesus has to explain to Peter again that he does not understand. Later in John 18:11 on that same night, it is Peter who draws his sword and strikes the left ear of the temple servant. It is Peter who will deny Jesus three times, slipping into the cold, dark, night. It is Peter who returns home to fishing when he learns Jesus is alive. He has screwed up enough to think that he should be a fisherman; a disciple is too much to wish for.

Why, among all Peter’s failures do we see the episode in the boat as a heroic moment, when Peter is again rebuked for lacking faith in the same way Jesus rebukes his disciples whenever they misunderstand or do the wrong thing? Remember, it was doubt, and not faith that lead Peter to step out onto the waters. “If it is you Jesus…”

So we find Peter, in John 21, hiding out, fishing, until he hears a voice on the seashore. “Cast out on the other side of the boat…” and Peter does without question even though he does not recognize Jesus. Then, after a miraculous catch of fish, the beloved disciple realizes, “It is the Lord.” And Peter, jumps into the water… and swims to shore. This is Peter’s heroic moment on the waters. He’s swimming towards Jesus not out of doubt but out of desire. He eats with Jesus, and then Jesus and Peter walk along the shore. Jesus points to the stuff on the seashore, the boat, the nets, the stinky fish. “Peter do you love me more than these?” Peter confesses his love three times, once for every denial on the night of Jesus’ arrest, and takes his place as a disciple. This is the great lesson: it is not the failures that define this great Apostle; it is the great mercy of his Savior.

Epiphany -

E⋅PIPH⋅A⋅NY   

–noun, plural -nies. 1. (initial capital letter) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day.
2. an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity.
3. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
4. a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight.


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So, here is an epiphany for you... the Cathedral has been silent far too long. I miss writing as regularly and as randomly as I used to. My life is full of new thoughts and events. New things to ponder but I have not been able to write on them. No wonder this winter seems especially cold, the days especially long, the winter landscape especially unfriendly. This winter has been waiting for a wellspring of creativity.

So let's light the candles to push back the night and again, place our gifts in the Cathedral. It is a new day, a new year, and I just turned 31...

31 hardly seems possible. The other day I was speaking to the youth and mentioning where I was when 9/11 occurred. One of the kids told me... "I was in a cradle." It freaked me the hell out.

Still, things are coming together. I have real furniture. A gym membership. A career. School loans. You name it.

There is also, worship. One of the things that has made me happiest is that being a Pastor, there are rarely a moment of my existence that I do not think about worship. I move from the lofty heights of reflection on the nature and purpose of worship, to the less cerebral concerns of preparing the bulletins. I spend most of my time reflection on how to respond to, and demonstrate your love for... God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What an unexpected blessing when it comes to being a pastor! Anyway, beyond that I am excited that Barack Obama will be elected tomorrow, and that our country is changing from the fear based ideologies of the past. I'll be watching the inauguration tomorrow which is currently 18 hours 7 minutes and 46 seconds away.

I'll send another blog tomorrow! Let the renaissance begin!

The good news is...

So General Conference of the United Methodist Church met again this year. Of course primary on the agenda was the debate over full inclusion of homosexual persons into the clergy and life of the church. The good news is that the rules didn't change. We are so thankful that our rulebook is safe from the "liberal element" and the "homosexual agenda". We are so fortunate to have the Confessing Movement and the Insititute for Religion and Democracy to protect the Book of Discipline!

True, some might say that the people are more important than a canon law book.. Some misguided persons might say that souls are more important than legal code and that perhaps, IF homosexuality is a sin we should invest time in researching a healthy, rational, and sane treatment to provide healing. Perhaps something that is based on psychology as well as prayer and not based in theophostic heresies. However the Gospel teaches that the law is first and that people are second. That's why Jesus was such good friends with the Pharisees!

So I want to send my thanks to our modern day pharisees! Thank you all of you for keeping the Book of Discipline safe from this generation's outcasts! Well Done!

Daily Reading and Reflection- The Rule of Saint Benedict

PROLOGUE FROM THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT

Hence the Lord says in the Gospel,
"Whoever listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them,
I will liken to a wise person
who built a house on rock.
The floods came,
the winds blew and beat against that house,
and it did not fall,
because it had been founded on rock" (Matt. 7:24-25).

Having given us these assurances,
the Lord is waiting every day
for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions.
And the days of this life are lengthened
and a truce granted us for this very reason,
that we may amend our evil ways.
As the Apostle says,
"Do you not know that God's patience is inviting you to repent" (Rom. 2:4)?
For the merciful Lord tells us,
"I desire not the death of the sinner,
but that the sinner should be converted and live" (Ezech. 33:11).


I love this interplay that Benedict seems to have between the promises of God and the deeds of the believer. A protestant might read this and say it is works righteousness but notice how he frames this. From God's promises, spring righteous acts, holiness, and transformation. It is as if, all of the Christian life is just a river of goodness flowing down from God. Notice that for Benedict, goodness in the Christian person is first initiated by God's assurances. That our lives are constantly lived in response to God rather than reaching up to God. For Benedict all the goodness of the monastic practice of faith as an act of harmony with God.

Adulthood and Great Deals on Furniture

So these past few weeks have been bloody. My psyche feels absolutely bruised by all the crap that has been thrown around lately. Oh don't get me wrong, ministry is fine and my life is fine. It's just been tough you know?

In the past few weeks every member of my family have been in the hospital. Most notably my sister Cathy who after experiencing Kidney failure has been on dialysis and added to the transplant list. She's getting along and so am I but the entire situation could best be summed up by a question my nephew Logan asked my sister when he got home from school. "So Mom, who went into the hospital today?" Pretty astute for a second grader.

On the other hand I just bought a beautiful armoir at a second hand furniture store that is one of the most beautiful things I could possibly imagine. Follow that with an $1100 coffee table I bought a few days later on sale for $250. What a fantastic deal!!! It has a marble top and must weight at least 80 pounds! However, it has made coming home such an unexpected pleasure you know. I think I might be developing an addiction to buying furniture. It took me ten months to pay for my armoir but now that it is home I want to go out and buy something else.

I also turned 30 in January and it kind of freaked me out. Coming home each day to hand me down furniture that was falling apart made me feel like I was behind my age. You're supposed to have crappy furniture and empty rooms in college. So I am happy to be getting rid of the milkcrates and exchanging them for actual pieces of furniture. It makes me feel like I am at the right place in my life you know?

I am also so proud of my youth group! What a fantastic group of kids! So that is a quick biographical sketch of what's been going on lately.

In my next blog I'll write about a research project I've been doing.

Regular Blogging...

I will make no promises... but I would like to begin blogging regularly again. I miss this world entirely to much. Especially since I think I have gotten the hang of many aspects of my ministry that have thus far eluded me. I am also in a hopeful frame of mind due in no small part to many hours of sleep I have had today. Yesterday I returned from Michigan with the youth group, and today I rested the entire day away. I didn' even do the dishes that have been staring at me for a week. I still feel tired but I know that when I go to bed tonite tomorrow will find me refreshed. So I am hopeful for a day of full energy. Days that have been far to few lately.

Hope is the operative word here though. My sister, Cathy, who is one of my wisest and most wonderful of counselors has been very ill. It has not been in any way easy and does not appear to be letting up. She did return to work today and is out of the hospital but the prognosis isn't good. But I continue to hope...

A couple years ago I had what I described as "The Fullest Lent Ever". This year has been the "Longest Lent Ever". Alot of wilderness and desert lately.

However I have a funny little story that might demonstrate the immutability of hope. I have this cactus that for some reason is not doing well. In fact, I think my dark green thumb has degraded to a black thumb and I'm going to be a plant killer soon. However, even though this cactus looks bad, the other day it flowered. I've never seen a cactus like this flower before and it is helping me to realize that no matter how dark it seems, God,is still here working things out.

So I have hope... that immutable and undying thing that flowers even the desert.

Rewriting my Life

I have never given a sermon I haven't written and rewritten at least five times. My Christmas Eve Sermon got three rewrites before I finally delivered it. Six hours before the service I was rewriting the sermon for the last time. Is it finished yet? I'm still not sure.

My friend Jeana Clark once said that we never finished our papers in seminary, we merely abandoned them. I believe sermons are the same way.

So right now I am in the process of a major rewrite of my life. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I turn 30 next week and find a huge part of my personality unsatisfied and restless. Maybe it has something to do with the new ministry position or the fact that my dog has decided to chew on all my shoes. I don't know. Regardless I am in a season of reconstruction.

This is an odd place to be really - rethinking your theological background and foundations. The things I'm sure of are ten million times more sure (Nicene Creed, Methodistm), but everything else is in flux. The odd thing is that I wonder what people who are in my life now will still be there when I reach the other side of all this. Who will still care and who will write me off as a heretic, a conservative fascist or liberal nutjob? What do I stand to lose or gain in all this rethinking?

It really doesent' matter. I just has to be done. Salve Rex Ioudorum