What is it?

Check this out first (try listening to it first, without the images, just the song playing, your eyes closed. Pay careful attention to your reactions as you listen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkUeRPjc-Y&hd=1

I don't know what you think of Mumford and Sons as a band. They are quite the phenom in Great Britain and are gaining a lot of popularity here in North America as well. They have a lot of songs that are really great and have some gospel resonance.

As I listened to their CD the past while I found myself doing something over and over again - and it seemed to happen regardless of whether I was paying attention to the lyrics or not. Repeatedly I found myself getting energized, tapping my feet, wanting to move and getting excited as I listened.

Now, most of the time when we think of songs we are drawn to the lyrics. We read the words and find them inspiring - or not, as the case may be. But, (and here this isn't a new thought I am sure) I have been wondering lately abut the resonance that "form" has with us. What I mean is this: Is there a way to write music, structurally, that enlivens us? Is there a predictable way of embedding the notes, beating them out, harmonizing certain things together, etc., that when combined has the effect of lifting our spirits, stirring our souls and quickening our pulses that goes beyond the impact of the lyrics?

I am not asking, "Is there a formula for writing music that produces a hit song?" I am asking - are there unseen, redemptive, enlivening structures to music (and perhaps other things as well) that impact and change us in non obvious ways?

I think that the answer is clearly yes. The problem is, I don't know nearly enough about music to make the case.

Is the same thing inherent in good art? the structure of a well done speech? the symmetry of a bridge? the inherent structure of a good relationship? the beauty in the exchange that takes place in a well done conversation?

This seems to be the sort of thing that happens and "grabs" us, but it's hard to predict when. That said, we all know what it's like to be in an event/ conversation/ etc where the content and structure are at odds.

This is a bit of a rambling post - but it sets my mind to thinking a bit about the redemptive, beautiful, Divinely authored structure of the world around us. Where do I see it? Where can I find it? What are it's implications for what I do? say? sing? Can I mimic the redemptive work of God in ways that go beyond the obvious?

Maybe this is too simple of a question - but, where are the "deep structure" (a phrase a friend used last week) to our world that have the fingerprints of God on them?

This is War

"What I beleive about God is the most important thing about me." - A.W. Tozer

To be honest, I am not much of a Tozer fan, altho I can't profess to have read tons of his writing. However, that having been said, I do think that this is the sort of quote that you have to sit up and take notice of. The sheer scope of it demands a thoughtful, lingering response. 

I have been thinking about it lately, particularly as it relates to Christmas. What do we really think of the Jesus who's birth we are preparing to celebrate? Sure, there are the normal, stock answers: he was a teacher, he was a prophet, he was a good moral guy. And, the fact is that the responses to these sorts of claims are well written and easy to find. 

A few years ago I was sent an article by a good friend entitled, "Putting Herod back in Christmas." (I tried to quick google search but couldn't find the original, altho I noticed a number of other entries of the same title). The point of the article was simply this: Jesus wasn't a little child in a manger, "no crying he makes." Rather, he was born to unwed parents, was dirt poor, was born in backwater Bethlehem under anything but stable conditions, was welcomed by low life shepherds and religious leaders of anything but what we would consider stellar religious pedigree. Then, to top it all off, Jesus parents knew poverty fear and lived with the Son of God in hiding for the simple reason that when he was born Herod tried to assassinate baby Jesus by murdering every male child under the age of two in the whole region. 

In short, Jesus arrival wasn't idyllic. It was ANYTHING but Hallmark. It was a messy, ugly, gritty entrance into a world that evidenced the brokenness in profound ways at his birth.

So, I find myself drawn to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0RbWg0UCKE&hd=1

It's not the sort of thing most of us want to see at Christmas. Most of our suburban senses would be offended and pastors will resist showing this sort of a video because they will fear the emails and letters they will get. And yet, it seems to present to us a way of thinking about Jesus that is left out of Christmas. That said, is it all right? Are all the theological nuances there in the video - nope. Nothing's perfect. But, lack of perfection/ completeness shouldn't preclude us from considering that there is more than one way to look at this Christmas season we are approaching.

Merry Christmas 

Too many salad dressings

This link is not explicitly religious in nature. But, if Schwartz is correct, it would seem to me to have profoundly important consequences for how I think about faith, leadership, etc.

I put it here for reference sake. It's from the TED lectures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM&feature=related&hd=1

Out of the Blue

"What do you want to ask God for?"

The question caught be a bit off guard.  It was asked of me by a member of the church where I get to lead and pastor. In a lot of cases I think I would go into "pastor" mode and give a pat answer that would keep the questioner at bay. You know - slip into that insipid "Christian-ese" that we all know is fake and mildly nauseating, but which creeps into the hearts and language of the best of us.

But this time was different. This inquiry was made my a person who simply doesn't fall into this sort of Christian-ese subculture. That would be too fake for them. There is simply a genuineness to her that made the request hard to resist.

Anyway, I suddenly found myself telling this person that I had a lot of choices and wasn't sure how to make them in the most judicious way. Then, I asked for wisdom.

I know, I know - that is potentially the "safe" answer. I mean, who doesn't want wisdom, right?  All I can say is that it was an answer I offered out of a surprising amount of honesty. I really do think I need wisdom. I really do find myself wondering at times how to make wise choices in the midst of this new job, new demands, new reality of work, etc.

The person who had asked me for my prayer request didn't seem to miss a beat. The request seemed right and fine to her - in truth I think she is the sort of person that would give the benefit of the doubt to everyone so that if I had asked for a hot dog or some other inane thing she would have taken it with as much seriousness as my request for wisdom. I digress, yet again.

In response to my request the praying partner told me that she would pray. However, she told me I had work to do. Quoting Jesus own words to me, she told me that my job now was to believe. I was to believe in my heart that God would give wisdom and imagine that God was "pouring it like water over my head" even as we were talking.

All of the story I have told you up until this point is simply to make this point: sometimes it takes work to believe things to be true. Maybe even more than work, it might take determination, faith, trust, convincing, sweat, defiance of norms and mores, - and even more.

In any case, deciding to believe something to be true - that's my work today. Regardless of the pessimism that creeps in at times, the nit-picky opinions of others to the contrary, etc.  - part of my work is to believe certain things to be true.

What are you deciding to believe? Is this hard work for you at times?

Resolve

The other day I made a list of all the things that could possibly occupy my life. What I mean is, I tried to map out the sorts of things - be they personal, work related, family, hobbies, projects, etc., that could take up pieces of my life and time. It's a great things to do now and then - I highly recommend it. 

As it turns out I have a total of 38 "things" vying for my attention. Some are projects at church, hobbies I am learning about, projects I have taken on with my kids, personal goals, leadership stuff, school, etc. 

As I looked at them I was struck by the fact that in a great many situations I end up feeling like its and "either or choice." What I mean is, I noticed that I often feel like I am boxed it and constrained when I am forced into either or choices. I have taken to calling this the "binary" choice.

Here's what I realized: this might work well with certain choices, but it wreaks havoc on my faith.

Think about it: if its a project at the office I can often chose a) or b) - and then act accordingly. But, so often it seems to be the case that when it comes to matters of faith, making choices binary seems to mean that I move towards God or I don't. Lately I have been wondering if this is the right way to think about it. Let me make it a bit more concrete.

The other day I had to do something that was faith related - it was a particular act that is part of my life with God/ vocation. As the time drew near to engage, I found myself getting strangely anxious and a bit fearful. It was unusual because I don't normally experience this sort of thing - at least with regard to the particular thing I am talking about. 

Anyway, I think that had I let myself I would have opted out. I would have simply felt like the anxiety/ fear associated made to too much, too hard. I would have cratered and fear would have gotten the better of me. 

Then, I read Psalm 42. Here's now the NIV reads on this chapter:

As the deer pants for streams of water, 

   so my soul pants for you, my God. 

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

   When can I go and meet with God? 

3 My tears have been my food 

   day and night, 

while people say to me all day long, 

   “Where is your God?” 

4 These things I remember 

   as I pour out my soul: 

how I used to go to the house of God 

   under the protection of the Mighty One[d] 

with shouts of joy and praise 

   among the festive throng.

 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? 

   Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, 

   for I will yet praise him, 

   my Savior and my God.

 6 My soul is downcast within me; 

   therefore I will remember you 

from the land of the Jordan, 

   the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. 

7 Deep calls to deep 

   in the roar of your waterfalls; 

all your waves and breakers 

   have swept over me.

 8 By day the LORD directs his love, 

   at night his song is with me— 

   a prayer to the God of my life.

 9 I say to God my Rock, 

   “Why have you forgotten me? 

Why must I go about mourning, 

   oppressed by the enemy?” 

10 My bones suffer mortal agony 

   as my foes taunt me, 

saying to me all day long, 

   “Where is your God?”

 11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? 

   Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, 

   for I will yet praise him, 

   my Savior and my God.

I was drawn to verse 5 and 11. In the verses preceding each of these there is a languishing/ flourishing/ longing move in the heart of the writer. I know what that feels like. The vagaries of emotions and the havoc they can wreak on my faith life are the stuff that legends are made of. But, I noticed the vocative nature of the words in verses 5 and 11. It's like the Psalmist made a decision long before the emotions of the circumstance came along - and his decision was to default to praising/ longing and trusting in God.

My observation about my life would be that I make this an "in the moment" decision all too often. I have been wondering lately what it would look like to live in the fullness of the moment, the full brunt of all the emotions that come my way - feeling all the angst and anguish (as well as the blessedness) and know that my resolve, in each moment, is to be before God in everything. 

"for I will YET praise him, my Savior and my God"

Non binary faith. 

Something Beautiful

Sinead O'Connor facts:
 - perpetually bald singer and presently nearly 45 years old
 - Irish singer songwriter
 - started her musical career with Ton Ton Macoute (a band named for a notorious police force)
 - ordained as a priest in the 1990s by Bishop Michael Cox in the Irish Orthodox Catholic Church
 - mother of four, married three times
 - diagnosed with bi-polar disorder
 - source of controversy at times including statements about the Pope, her own sexuality, and in    
    appearances on SNL
 - produced and recorded more than ten CDs
 - self professed believer in Jesus and pantheism

I will confess that I haven't always listened to Sinead. Sure, I have been aware of her. I have observed her in the news now and then, and I do remember the "stunt" she pulled on SNL, tearing the picture of the Pope in half and uttering her line "Fight the real enemy."

At a minimum, individuals such as Sinead seem to have a polarizing effect for a lot of people. Some won't like her for the things she has said. Other's will outright reject her for actions she has taken. And so it goes - we pick and chose the people whom we allow to influence us and our world on the basis of what they have said and done. And, over time, we develop a grid or system whereby we can make quick (snap?) judgments about the good, the bad and the ugly (according to us) in this world.

And, let's be clear: for the most part, this often works quite well when efficiency and predictability are the metrics which matter most. In fact, there is something wise and good about being discerning regarding who we allow to influence our hearts, minds, thinking etc. and in a world where life comes at us at breakneck speed we often feel the internal need to get a system like this up and running asap.

And then, you end up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkeVqwba7Zk&hd=1

Beautiful.                  Beautiful.                  Beautiful.

What's the point of this blog entry? It's simple - and in a lot of ways a remedial message that we all should have picked up a long time ago (it's just that this clip from Sinead reminded me of it a lot.)

Here's the point: so often we want as Christians to put demarcation lines around what is good, what is bad, what we should do, shouldn't do, who we should hang with and who we can safely ignore. There are SO many forces in the Christian circles that want us to make things blacker and whiter. And the temptation is to do this all over our lives, carving up people, culture and relationships on a subjective scale of what we deem good and right vs. bad and problematic. Sure we will invoke biblical verse and ideas to justify our lines - and maybe this is good and right for certain seasons and times.

But, what if we thought of this differently? More to the point, what if we simply engaged our minds and hearts a bit more and rather than leveraging popular Christian biases? What if we actually learn the discipline of thoughtful discernment about this world? And, what if rather than instilling fear  about this that or the other thing be it from the pulpit or in our homes as we raise our kids, we insisted that pastors and parents teach their kids and this world to engage, listen, discern, think - and all of it in a dance with the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ (in whom ALL things hold together - Col 1:17)

This world of ours has problems, to be sure. But, it is God's world. His. No one else's. And rather than cowering from what we perceive to be problem parts of our world, or, worse yet, tsk/tsking the world because it doesn't look the way we think it should (this simply seems to simplistic to me - OF COURSE IT'S NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE - if it were Jesus Christ wouldn't have to have died, rose and announced a Kingdom of newness and beauty and redeeming powers that cannot be thwarted) - the clarion call of Christ followers seems to be to enter, engage, seek the welfare of this world - and learn to discern the movements of God and His Spirit in a world that is under a Divinely-authored renovation.

Some will say that they can disregard Sinead because of her life, her words, her stance on this or that, or even her self professed confused sexuality. But, what if we simply said, "Thanks." Thanks Sinead for a beautiful song that I can savour gently. And, "Thanks, God," for revealing the redeeming beauty of your power and grace by using a person like Sinead. Using her, with all of her foibles and folly gives me hope that even tho my "junk" isn't on TV or in the news, God still uses me.

Anything less than a measure of humble adoration for God's use of marred clay seems to belie an dangerous pride that might make one the target of God's destructive power. (Proverbs 15: 25) So, with humility, I say thanks Sinead for a beautiful song that points me to the beauty of our Heavenly Father - even if we are both a bit confused at times about who He is and how deep His love is for you and me.

Creating vs. Tweaking

How do you change something?

For the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about how one can change a situation. More particularly, I have been thinking about how one can change a culture, including a subculture like a church.

A popular book talks about the "tipping point" and tries to identify the various factors or common elements that social movements have and which, when combined "tip" things and result in a cultural change. I think the book is a fascinating read. 

That got me thinking about another book - the Bible. What, if anything, does God have to say about how we change things. Well, there are a lot of answers to this question. People change because of the Holy Spirit. People change because of repentance - again linked to the Holy Spirit. 

But what about a culture and world?

Some will argue that you tweak things, making small changes to the culture and chipping away at it until, lo and behold, things have changed. Others, will say that you change it by confronting - calling out evil or whatever else you might want to see altered. 

Lately, I have been thinking that one of the gifts which God has given us the gift of creativity. What I mean is this: my observation is that things change in large ways when there is newness, creativity, a new reality. In fact, we are made in the image of a creator, and it could be argued that one of the fundamental truths about Christ followers is that we were made to make/ create and bring into reality that which is not presently there. 

One of the potentially sad observations is that creative people (and here I am thinking about the arts) in the history of the church have often been pushed to the margins, and at times ostracized altogether. Why? Because their creative expressions were considered a threat to the stability of the church. 

It makes me sad to wonder what has been lost in such a transaction.

It also makes me wonder: who are the creators of the church today? Who are the people giving expression to newness? Who are the ones that are trying to create the new realities in our world? in our governments? churches? This is not to "saint" all those that are at the fringes with wacky ideas about how things ought to be. I think that would be silly. But, it might be worth asking where the fringe of your world is these days - and consider leaning into it. It might be the place where you are most changed - and maybe even be the place where God uses you to bring about the sort of change that he might only be able to bring about when you get active in the creative process.   

What would it look like?

Before we moved to Oakville in August we did what everyone does when they are scoping out a new place to live: we asked others what they knew about the area. 

Now, if you ask very many people about Oakville and what it is like you will get a flood of the same answers. For the most part, what we heard were things like, "rich," "snooty," "very nice," "hoy-tee toy-tee" (is that really how you would spell that?), "great soccer leagues," "great schools," "expensive," - the list goes on and on. 

Then we talked to a friend who works in the mental health profession. While he affirmed all of the previous statements, he added on that took me a bit by surprise. Anyone care to guess what it is?

My friend told me that more than anything the thing he has to deal with most is the simple fact that the people of Oakville are engaged in more sexual addiction, pornography and marital affairs than any other community he knew about. In fact, he called it the "epidemic" of Oakville. And, while that might sound surprising, I mentioned that bit of info at a meeting I was at the other day and literally was (playfully) "shushed" by someone else at the meeting with a covert, "we don't talk about that."

Now, fact is I have no idea if this is true or not. But, here's what I do know: I have never seen a church do intentional, missional work around the breakdown of marriages. Sure there are Alpha's to help people pick up the pieces. There are ALANON and other such groups to help people deal with the relational mess that often accompanies this sort of thing. 

But, what if a church decided to open it's doors, in some deliberate way, to people who are tempted and/or engaged in full blown marital affairs, porn or other sexual addictions?

I know we could be "missional" with regard to the homeless, the disadvantaged or some other unique group - and I for one think we should at the church I am a part of. But I can't help but think that the individuals engaged in this form of brokeness are in just as much need of help as a hungry person is. 

Sure, there are going to be challenges including: privacy issues, shame, collateral damage, image issues, secrecy barriers. But what if we could stave off this sort of brokeness? What if we could be a healing presence instead of relegating this form of brokeness to the divorce courts? 

What would it look like for a church to tackle this sort of thing in really intentional way?

Stupid email

I did it. I fell for it. 

I have told myself I wouldn't - but I did anyway. I mean, I tried to resist. I really did. I even told myself not to do it - but some strange force compelled me.

What did I do? I sent an email. More than that, I sent an email as a way to resolve a small disagreement. 

In the past I have told myself and others, "Never send an email as a way to deal with any measure of conflict be it great or small." The problem is that it is SO tempting to deal with things this way. I mean it's quick, efficient - and rarely presents you with the problem of dealing with the perceived conflict in a face to face manner - the thing most of us find most daunting about disagreements. 

So, I sent my email and I got the reply. And I should have stopped - but I didn't. The ball was rolling and I couldn't stop myself. I told myself that I wouldn't keep going - just get the facts out there and deal with it in person later on. And yet, there I went - 4 emails deep into a conflict. The result? I think that now the actual issue that started the whole conversation might be lost because we are going to have to trace through the email thread to hear each other's intonation about all that has been said. 

Turns out dealing with conflict might be the most inefficient manner of dealing with things if only because now we have the original issue - PLUS the rest of the conversation to work through.

Rookie mistake on my part. What about you?