God I need your help tonight
Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear a voice
It’s whispering
I know I run the risk of of being considered a one trick pony by anyone who stops by this blog, but I don't care.
The words above are from, yes you guessed it, a U2 song. I feel more strongly then ever they have been a voice crying from the wilderness for along time. I know that I had somewhat lost my way in what it means for me to live following Christ. Their music has been a big part of an awakening happening in my life.
I think I'm begining to see and understand how the noise this world system creates ( the institutional Church unfortunately has become caught up in that noise also ) keeps me confused and disoriented, to where it is difficult to hear God's voice in me. It seems he is very clearly explaining to me all these controls so I can unplug from them and be set free to live in Him. He is helping set me free from these controls so I can see as He sees and learn, I must be honest here, to live depending on Him for all I need, for the first time ever in my life.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
HOW DOES CHRISTIANITY STAND IN THE WAY?
When we are led to believe that our behavor, good or bad, causes God to react to us like wise, the relationship He desires with us gets distorted. In a strange twist, control now, still remains in our hands. Our condition has now become worse than before. There is no way to live in relationship with anyone without violating them. And yes we are unaware of it. We can't help but manipulate them and place expectations on them. Our problematic independance now gets covered up with Religious speak and we are left in a dangerous condition. That is unless we are awakened from this intoxicating sleep. Oh we think we are wide awake and intune with God. But do our lives really reflect the heart of God we see in Christ's life?
Friday, August 25, 2006
HELPING THEM GROW...HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CONTROLLING THEM
GIVING OUR CHILDREN AND EACH OTHER SPACE TO GROW
The difference between forced conformity and EXPECTANT LIVING.
I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there…
To hear the things you haven’t said
And see what you might see
I want to hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I want to see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out
Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby’s head
The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
Oh, what could be possible for each and everyone of us, if we found freedom from the things that distort the invitation to the life God has made possible for us?
I thought of this bit from a U2 song the other day when I had the pleasure of seeing my youngest daughter have a moment of discovery.
It comes at a time, of what I like to call, a most beautiful change in our family. Through a very painful and scary experience with our oldest daughter, God pulled the cover back in my life, and the control I was using on everybody and was living under myself was exposed. The unwinding of alot of this mess, has brought a wonderful change in the atmosphere in our home.
I've learned that trying to teach my children not to act in controlling manipulative ways by using those very things on them is a dead end road. I was frustrated, they were frustrated and we were stuck. The whole family. My family was not out of control in the way you might look at our society. My wife is great, we really love each other very much, my daughters are high achievers in many things. They are lovely kids. We all love God and are pursuing Him. It was just very messy with a great big dose of CONTROL AND MANIPULATION coming from everyone. Our view of God wasn't working well in this area of parenting or life for that matter. Through many years He had been at work unraveling much of the confusion Religion had left us in, but the control issue had not been exposed. God will use whatever he has to, to get our attention.
Things have been turned upside down, or maybe closer to right side up through this experience. I feel in my enthusiasm many years ago when I came back to Christianity ( I use that term intentually here ) I missed out on a big part of the Cross of Christ, the part that gets at the core of the Natural Man. Isn't that the point of the cross for us. That Natural Man stuff is what keeps us from moving from our state of death to new life in Him. If we then don't let God sort out in us the tangled mess this life of independance has created in our minds and hearts we really remain in the mess. It take a lifetime for Him to help sort it out in us. It's a journey.
I believe this is why the Traditional Institutional Church as a whole has been diminished to not much more than a social bless me club. I lived in control, or so I thought, of everything and at the core of it all, tried to even control God. He is having his way finally. A trip back to the Cross was necessary. For me to boast about this happening is just laughable. I wanted Him to fix everybody around me and my messed up circumstances they were responsible for. I know that is ugly but that is what it was. He didn't seemed to be interested it that at all. I am learning, FINALLY, I can't fix anyone, not even myself. But I can learn to love and He can teach me how to live in honorable relations with everyone around me. Yes, this is how He even wants me to live with my children. I want to stop exploiting people for my gain. I've learned that this one runs deep and hides itself very well. Here's some more good news, He knows what He is doing. He can get at this stuff and set us free. I want to get out of His way. He knows the dreams he has for my children, He is the potter, I am not. He is the Author and finisher of our faith.
So, I will end with my daughter Sam's discovery. There was an issue that had raged between her and her two older sisters for years. It was very frustrating and the fix was easy for me to see. For some reason they didn't seem to get it. It would drive me to fits and just about every evening would end with this battle. I would enter the battle, setting a terrible example and compounding the problem. I couldn't seem to see that, or at least stop myself. After the work of God really started to change me and my wife, we were able to let alot of this stuff go. Things started to change for us. Their conflict went on for awhile longer. And I'm dreaming, if I think there won't be more up ahead. That's life!!!!
Sam came up to me the other day and said, Dad, we have figured out a solution to the fights we have been having before bedtime. I said, really Sam, what is it? With this big grin on her shining face, she said, we have been rotating, taking turns, it's working really well. I said, Sam, that is really cool. What a great idea. I'm proud of you. She turned and ran off. It was the thing I had been screaming at them all that time to no avail, but she wasn't even thinking about that at all. This was her discovery and I was not about to take it from her. I then realized, I had not even noticed that they hadn't been arguing about it any more.
I remember hearing a brother , who had been such a big help to me in that time of, let's say my painful discovery, he said this, love will always take us places law never can. Oh, has that ever turned out to be true.
From the minute they come out of their mom's womb, they are leaving us. That is the way it is suppose to be. God designed it that way. I want to be a support in His training of them, not a hindrance.
The difference between forced conformity and EXPECTANT LIVING.
I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there…
To hear the things you haven’t said
And see what you might see
I want to hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I want to see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out
Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby’s head
The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
Oh, what could be possible for each and everyone of us, if we found freedom from the things that distort the invitation to the life God has made possible for us?
I thought of this bit from a U2 song the other day when I had the pleasure of seeing my youngest daughter have a moment of discovery.
It comes at a time, of what I like to call, a most beautiful change in our family. Through a very painful and scary experience with our oldest daughter, God pulled the cover back in my life, and the control I was using on everybody and was living under myself was exposed. The unwinding of alot of this mess, has brought a wonderful change in the atmosphere in our home.
I've learned that trying to teach my children not to act in controlling manipulative ways by using those very things on them is a dead end road. I was frustrated, they were frustrated and we were stuck. The whole family. My family was not out of control in the way you might look at our society. My wife is great, we really love each other very much, my daughters are high achievers in many things. They are lovely kids. We all love God and are pursuing Him. It was just very messy with a great big dose of CONTROL AND MANIPULATION coming from everyone. Our view of God wasn't working well in this area of parenting or life for that matter. Through many years He had been at work unraveling much of the confusion Religion had left us in, but the control issue had not been exposed. God will use whatever he has to, to get our attention.
Things have been turned upside down, or maybe closer to right side up through this experience. I feel in my enthusiasm many years ago when I came back to Christianity ( I use that term intentually here ) I missed out on a big part of the Cross of Christ, the part that gets at the core of the Natural Man. Isn't that the point of the cross for us. That Natural Man stuff is what keeps us from moving from our state of death to new life in Him. If we then don't let God sort out in us the tangled mess this life of independance has created in our minds and hearts we really remain in the mess. It take a lifetime for Him to help sort it out in us. It's a journey.
I believe this is why the Traditional Institutional Church as a whole has been diminished to not much more than a social bless me club. I lived in control, or so I thought, of everything and at the core of it all, tried to even control God. He is having his way finally. A trip back to the Cross was necessary. For me to boast about this happening is just laughable. I wanted Him to fix everybody around me and my messed up circumstances they were responsible for. I know that is ugly but that is what it was. He didn't seemed to be interested it that at all. I am learning, FINALLY, I can't fix anyone, not even myself. But I can learn to love and He can teach me how to live in honorable relations with everyone around me. Yes, this is how He even wants me to live with my children. I want to stop exploiting people for my gain. I've learned that this one runs deep and hides itself very well. Here's some more good news, He knows what He is doing. He can get at this stuff and set us free. I want to get out of His way. He knows the dreams he has for my children, He is the potter, I am not. He is the Author and finisher of our faith.
So, I will end with my daughter Sam's discovery. There was an issue that had raged between her and her two older sisters for years. It was very frustrating and the fix was easy for me to see. For some reason they didn't seem to get it. It would drive me to fits and just about every evening would end with this battle. I would enter the battle, setting a terrible example and compounding the problem. I couldn't seem to see that, or at least stop myself. After the work of God really started to change me and my wife, we were able to let alot of this stuff go. Things started to change for us. Their conflict went on for awhile longer. And I'm dreaming, if I think there won't be more up ahead. That's life!!!!
Sam came up to me the other day and said, Dad, we have figured out a solution to the fights we have been having before bedtime. I said, really Sam, what is it? With this big grin on her shining face, she said, we have been rotating, taking turns, it's working really well. I said, Sam, that is really cool. What a great idea. I'm proud of you. She turned and ran off. It was the thing I had been screaming at them all that time to no avail, but she wasn't even thinking about that at all. This was her discovery and I was not about to take it from her. I then realized, I had not even noticed that they hadn't been arguing about it any more.
I remember hearing a brother , who had been such a big help to me in that time of, let's say my painful discovery, he said this, love will always take us places law never can. Oh, has that ever turned out to be true.
From the minute they come out of their mom's womb, they are leaving us. That is the way it is suppose to be. God designed it that way. I want to be a support in His training of them, not a hindrance.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
PARABLES
I'm making two post today, don't miss the other one.
As I was sitting here looking at my blog, I started thinking about the statement I have with my profile. What may at first seem fragile, becomes, instead a journey towards a rendezvous with grace. It made me think of Jesus's use of parables. The idea that Jesus's parables made the hearers uncomfortable seems so profound to me today. They turn our way of thinking on it's head. They exposed our weak position, that to us seems like a position of strength (or truth, not), for what it really is. So what at first seems fragile becomes, instead, a journey towards a rendezvous with grace. He now becomes to us the one who has the words of life. The life I'm living really is exposed as death: fear, confusion, anxiety, hopelessness, despair and so forth. He becomes the vehicle, if you will, to take us to that place where true life resides. Our home, Abide in me and I will abide in you.
As I was sitting here looking at my blog, I started thinking about the statement I have with my profile. What may at first seem fragile, becomes, instead a journey towards a rendezvous with grace. It made me think of Jesus's use of parables. The idea that Jesus's parables made the hearers uncomfortable seems so profound to me today. They turn our way of thinking on it's head. They exposed our weak position, that to us seems like a position of strength (or truth, not), for what it really is. So what at first seems fragile becomes, instead, a journey towards a rendezvous with grace. He now becomes to us the one who has the words of life. The life I'm living really is exposed as death: fear, confusion, anxiety, hopelessness, despair and so forth. He becomes the vehicle, if you will, to take us to that place where true life resides. Our home, Abide in me and I will abide in you.
ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT, THE NORMAL CHRISTIAN LIFE
Any ideas as to what keeps us from the normal christian life?
Any ideas as to what it looks like?
Any ideas as to how to get there?
Any ideas as to what it looks like?
Any ideas as to how to get there?
Monday, August 21, 2006
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
Here is a paradigm shift for me. I read this the other day and it just blew me away. It brought some clarity to me. One of the things I feel Father has brought front and center to me is this idea of JUSTICE. The meaning I have lived with (THE LEGAL ONE) for most of my life and with the twist society and even RELIGION puts on it has just confused me. When I heard this a lot of the confusion was cleared up. I saw this on someone elses blog.
taken from: http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/
"Martens did a masterful job of defining the Hebrew word for justice, mishpat. In western society we have come to understand justice as something we receive (I am a victim, I demand justice) or we dispense (he was convicted and justice was served). But mishpat could best be defined as "honorable relations." Justice is something that we do in relationship with others. It is active not passive. The goal is shalom -- not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of harmony in relationships. What might a country look like if it practiced this kind of justice?"
That sounds more like what I see Jesus showing us through His life and message. The message of reconciliation and peace make sense in light of this.
taken from: http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/
"Martens did a masterful job of defining the Hebrew word for justice, mishpat. In western society we have come to understand justice as something we receive (I am a victim, I demand justice) or we dispense (he was convicted and justice was served). But mishpat could best be defined as "honorable relations." Justice is something that we do in relationship with others. It is active not passive. The goal is shalom -- not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of harmony in relationships. What might a country look like if it practiced this kind of justice?"
That sounds more like what I see Jesus showing us through His life and message. The message of reconciliation and peace make sense in light of this.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
A QUESTION TO CONSIDER
Maybe this is just for me, but I'm going to throw it out there and see what comes back. I feel this challenge being layed before me. You speak of a life you believe in and then go on living like you don't really believe it.
Do any of you ever feel that way? If you do, why do you think that is so? I'm not suggesting that there has not been some living like I believe it. I just feel a challenge to go farther in the living it out.
The scene from the Matrix where Neo is given the choice between the blue pill and the red pill has been on my mind alot. I feel much of my life with God has been lived in between these two realms. I have lived knowing only one of them is real but still trying to live the real one all the while not unpluging from the other. I don't mean leaving the other, because I know the call is to take the reality of the real life into the unreality of the other life most people live in. I'm seeing this other unreality in a way I have never seen it before. It reminds me of Jesus telling the parable of the weeds choking out the good seed that was planted. The rabbit hole is very deep. Here's the cool thing. So many conflicts I have lived with in my head and heart are being untangled and it is bringing a clarity and is shinning a light on the confusion I have lived in for so long. It is giving me a much more simple view of how to live this life in God or if you want to say vision of how to do it, then I have had in a long time, if ever. It seems to be pushing out the frustration that has been so much a part of my life for a long time. I have described it like this before; a period of my life where my view of God didn't work that well, for me or those I have been in relation with.
Do any of you know what I mean? Are you experiencing more peace or more frustration? Have you stopped long enough and stepped outside of the chaos this life creates and piles on top of us to think about why?
Any ideas?
Do any of you ever feel that way? If you do, why do you think that is so? I'm not suggesting that there has not been some living like I believe it. I just feel a challenge to go farther in the living it out.
The scene from the Matrix where Neo is given the choice between the blue pill and the red pill has been on my mind alot. I feel much of my life with God has been lived in between these two realms. I have lived knowing only one of them is real but still trying to live the real one all the while not unpluging from the other. I don't mean leaving the other, because I know the call is to take the reality of the real life into the unreality of the other life most people live in. I'm seeing this other unreality in a way I have never seen it before. It reminds me of Jesus telling the parable of the weeds choking out the good seed that was planted. The rabbit hole is very deep. Here's the cool thing. So many conflicts I have lived with in my head and heart are being untangled and it is bringing a clarity and is shinning a light on the confusion I have lived in for so long. It is giving me a much more simple view of how to live this life in God or if you want to say vision of how to do it, then I have had in a long time, if ever. It seems to be pushing out the frustration that has been so much a part of my life for a long time. I have described it like this before; a period of my life where my view of God didn't work that well, for me or those I have been in relation with.
Do any of you know what I mean? Are you experiencing more peace or more frustration? Have you stopped long enough and stepped outside of the chaos this life creates and piles on top of us to think about why?
Any ideas?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
IN THE WORDS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
From his autobiography
But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Chistian gospel: " I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I can not do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abrham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extention of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified for the same crime-the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in need of creative extremists.
But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Chistian gospel: " I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I can not do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abrham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extention of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified for the same crime-the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in need of creative extremists.
Monday, August 14, 2006
HE IS RECAPTURING MY IMAGINATION
Isaiah 40: 28-31
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Part Two you must go down to the next post UNFINISHED THOUGHTS and start there for this to be in order.
The thoughts ended up being more finished than I thought they would be when I started to write.
In my religious arrogance and most of the mainstream church's we had miss read what was going on with U2. They had found something, most in the traditional church, still needs to find today. How do we take this message of grace, in these unfinished broken vessels, to a hurting world without looking down our noses at them like they are just poor heathens? They see that we are broken much clearer then we see our own brokenness. That's why they run from religious people. Partly due to U2, and mostly due to Father's love for me, I see my brokenness today. The music and the lives of Bono, The Edge, Larry, and Adam can teach us much in how to be broken and not hide it, all the while crying out for him and searching for him in the pain and joy of life. This picture, in full view to the world and to ourselves, in our weakness he make us strong. Now that is some AMAZING GRACE.
I believe the people in the world long to see this Jesus and a lot of them would embrace him. I have been reading some books on the band's spiritual message and have stumbled upon some new truths found in the way of God in the Psalms. It is some teachings from Walter Brueggemann. Brueggemann explores in the book "Psalms and the life of Faith" this idea of orientation-disorientation-reorientation. I haven't read his book yet, but it is mentioned in "Religious Nuts, Political Fanatics"... U2 in theological perspective by Robert Vagacs. This has been lived out most beautifully indeed by U2. It has been my experience also. I just spent too long fighting it, instead of embracing it, as being his way of transformation. A knowledge of God, then a disorienting period of living in a fallen world and how that reality effects all things in life and then through that experience a much clearer reality of God, as he really is, springs forth. Not only has this been my path, it was also what was going on with U2. The one main difference in the path U2 took and the path I took, was I went the path of the religionist, they took a way that was more of the Wanderer. Both paths are treacherous and have been proven to be very messy at times. I used to think the way of religion was better than the way of the wanderer. Today my mind has changed because it seems the wanderer comes to understand grace much sooner. The religionist just seems to have a difficult time moving away from law to grace. Hopefully, regardless of the path we are on it will lead us to this understanding...learning to abide in Him, and He is us, that being the only place we will find rest and find our way home. It is at first, that private dance I spoke of earlier, and then it begins to open up into a beautiful dance with everyone else around us, so that maybe they can find their way home also.
In my religious arrogance and most of the mainstream church's we had miss read what was going on with U2. They had found something, most in the traditional church, still needs to find today. How do we take this message of grace, in these unfinished broken vessels, to a hurting world without looking down our noses at them like they are just poor heathens? They see that we are broken much clearer then we see our own brokenness. That's why they run from religious people. Partly due to U2, and mostly due to Father's love for me, I see my brokenness today. The music and the lives of Bono, The Edge, Larry, and Adam can teach us much in how to be broken and not hide it, all the while crying out for him and searching for him in the pain and joy of life. This picture, in full view to the world and to ourselves, in our weakness he make us strong. Now that is some AMAZING GRACE.
I believe the people in the world long to see this Jesus and a lot of them would embrace him. I have been reading some books on the band's spiritual message and have stumbled upon some new truths found in the way of God in the Psalms. It is some teachings from Walter Brueggemann. Brueggemann explores in the book "Psalms and the life of Faith" this idea of orientation-disorientation-reorientation. I haven't read his book yet, but it is mentioned in "Religious Nuts, Political Fanatics"... U2 in theological perspective by Robert Vagacs. This has been lived out most beautifully indeed by U2. It has been my experience also. I just spent too long fighting it, instead of embracing it, as being his way of transformation. A knowledge of God, then a disorienting period of living in a fallen world and how that reality effects all things in life and then through that experience a much clearer reality of God, as he really is, springs forth. Not only has this been my path, it was also what was going on with U2. The one main difference in the path U2 took and the path I took, was I went the path of the religionist, they took a way that was more of the Wanderer. Both paths are treacherous and have been proven to be very messy at times. I used to think the way of religion was better than the way of the wanderer. Today my mind has changed because it seems the wanderer comes to understand grace much sooner. The religionist just seems to have a difficult time moving away from law to grace. Hopefully, regardless of the path we are on it will lead us to this understanding...learning to abide in Him, and He is us, that being the only place we will find rest and find our way home. It is at first, that private dance I spoke of earlier, and then it begins to open up into a beautiful dance with everyone else around us, so that maybe they can find their way home also.
unfinished thoughts
This is long I know, but I think the time it will take to read it is worth it. I hope it is an encouragement to who ever is here browsing.....
Learning how to live this life in Him in this world has proven itself to be much harder to grab a hold on then I ever thought it would be. But I feel another layer, a block or wall, if you will, is being peeled away. I'm staying home from work today writing this down because the thoughts I have during the process seem to never stay with me. I felt so strongly I wanted to write. Thanks be to him, the transforming work is done deep within and it stays.
In light of this I write also because I'm learning that this work, though it is for me, is not just for me. How do I live my life in this world in a way that just might really impact someone elses life so that they too come to experience their own private dance with their creator? Here's one of the things I feel I am learning, it is a private dance. It is me and my Savior and Father. It is very personal and unique. But with that being said, it's not just for me. It is on one hand and at the same time it isn't. Let me try to explain. I'm going to try to describe here how Father, through the Spirit and the love expressed through the Son has worked this most beautiful change in my life. There are many experiences I could point to but today and for much of my life it has been through music. And I have to admit, not what the community of faith would call Christian Music. I'm only going to deal with one band today but there are a few more. I will say this here though, some "Christian Music" has impacted my life. When I came back to God from my wanderings, "Christian Music" played a big part. Michael Card taught me much about the Father, Son and Spirit from scripture. It was important. But it only took me so far. It was all spelled out for me. It was right there, in full glory, in my face. It didn't take any digging. But from there when my life came back into the reality, that all things have not been set right in my world by this new found place in God, it let me down. I could not find the peace of God that my soul was longing for. It has been a long road to get to the place I find myself today. That road has been full of love, some peace, joy, revelation, hope, strong faith and many other wonderful things. But it has also been full of fear, anger, hopelessness at times, confusion, betterness, hurt, or should I say deep pain!!!! I could add more things to both of these lists but I think you get the point. I knew there was something missing. Or at least I saw it that way. That has changed today. What I was in need of was alot of paradigm shifts. I needed a new perspective. The band U2 was one of the biggest catalysts for this shift in perspective. Here were a few brothers of the faith that seemed to be experiencing all of the things I mentioned above in their journeys but seemed to have a steadiness that I did not have. Think of U2 and their lives as rock stars and that sounds strange coming from a believer, I know. I have listened to their music over the past 25 years and it has just been since 2001 that this has really come into focus for me. It has been since 2001 that this work has really started to take shape in my life. I will give you a little background at this time to try to explain how my experience brought me to were I am today.
Up to the point of the release of 'The Joshua Tree" I had been fine with U2. I rember exactly were I was and how listening to these songs made me feel. I was blown away to say the least. I feel music deeply and this was powerful. At least for the first several days. And then it started to fall apart for me. The song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was the begining of a period through the 90's where I did not listen to U2 much at all. The whole idea of a believer having touched something so real with the savior and being able to say, I still haven't found what I'm looking for just didn't work for me. So, U2 stoped working for me also. Now enters the dark years of my life. No, not days without God, days my view of God didn't work well. But I kept pressing on because I had found what I was looking for. Or so I thought. I'm learning today in a much clearer way a path heavily traveled where one thinks he is following after God and very might well be running from him. It is called RELIGION. Oh, it's beautifully describe as Christianity and the place christians learn about God but for me and alot of other, beautifully flawed folks I have had the privilege to meet, it was something else. It was a system that promised something that looked so awsome and gave me hope for, but in the end, kept me from him. I wanted it so bad. During the first year or so I thought I had found how to access it. It worked pretty well. But then things started to change. Looking back at it I was simply frustrated. Here's something very ugly that religion taught me. It was everybody else's fault. It had to be them because I was working at it much harder than they were. If they could only get their acts together the church would be the Bride. I'm glad we have a gracious God because this arogant believer would have been fried by the God I thought I was sharing with the lowly in the world. Then about a year into this journey I felt the Lord was leading me out of the mess ,of the organized church I was in, to grab the gold ring in God. I found a few other folks that wanted his best also. We were going for the best because we weren't going to settle for this cheap imitation. It was a few years into this new pursuit He exposed that arrogance also. Religion dies hard. Really hard!!!!! I remember a few good words that were spoken to us at the time. This one has proven to be true, as hard as getting me out of the system was, getting the system out of me was going to be much harder. It is still a work in progess. Here is another change, in my experience that followed over the next 14 years at the end of that period I found myself being drawn back to U2. It was post September 11 and I saw U2 on TV "Live from Boston" The Elevation Tour. Father started the work of ELEVATION in my life for real. U2 for me was back. And in a big and powerful way. They ended this show with the song "Walk On" and then went into a chorus of hallelujah, with Bono yelling out "thank you Master Jesus, come to the almighty, thank you Master Jesus. I remember weeping. HARD!!!!! I went out and bought my first U2 CD in 14 years. I listened and as Bono says, God walked through the room. The last song on the CD, "Grace" gave me hope at that moment for a relationship that was very strained for myself and my wife with another couple. In that hope some deep pain was exposed also. I wanted grace so bad where it wasn't being extended. It is coming slowly now 5 years later. Father has taught me so much through the fracture in this relationship, from that moment of hoping for grace and them not being able to walk in it with us. Or at least how I wanted them to. I learned how badly someone not being able to forgive or at least walk in forgiveness feels. I didn't ever want to walk in unforgiveness with anyone ever again. I started to cry out to the one who had shown me grace without measure and he heard my cry and answered and is still speaking. It reminds me of the song "40" I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit. Out of the miry clay. I will sing, sing a new song. I will sing, sing a new song. I always see grace as a beautiful song because of this. She makes time for people when they are in need of hearing a beautiful song because the weight of the world is too much to bare. Even when someone can't give it back grace does not hold back. Grace has proven itself to be the song he sings to me and wants me to sing to the world. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
So that was my introduction back to these brothers of the faith. I understood this clearly as God's way, and U2 for me, seemed like they were back. They really had never left. At that time, because of some of the paradigm shifts that were happening in my life I started to want some new U2 music to listen to. I thought of the period during the 90's I had missed out on. So I returned to the three recordings they produced during those years, hoping to find and touch some more of Father in their music. I could not believe what I found. "I Still Haven't Found Want I'm Looking For" wasn't a statement of, Jesus you're not it. It was a cry from someone who would not ever stop wrestling with a God who hides himself in his broken world so we have to go there to find him. And in the searching for him there something else happens. He touches the world through our searching for him under all the trash. That is what U2 was doing in the 90's. They actualy put those words in the song, "MOFO". The band, that alot of the christian community wrote off and layed pounds of judgement on, were on a better road than most of us, or at least the one I was on.
PART TWO TOMORROW
Learning how to live this life in Him in this world has proven itself to be much harder to grab a hold on then I ever thought it would be. But I feel another layer, a block or wall, if you will, is being peeled away. I'm staying home from work today writing this down because the thoughts I have during the process seem to never stay with me. I felt so strongly I wanted to write. Thanks be to him, the transforming work is done deep within and it stays.
In light of this I write also because I'm learning that this work, though it is for me, is not just for me. How do I live my life in this world in a way that just might really impact someone elses life so that they too come to experience their own private dance with their creator? Here's one of the things I feel I am learning, it is a private dance. It is me and my Savior and Father. It is very personal and unique. But with that being said, it's not just for me. It is on one hand and at the same time it isn't. Let me try to explain. I'm going to try to describe here how Father, through the Spirit and the love expressed through the Son has worked this most beautiful change in my life. There are many experiences I could point to but today and for much of my life it has been through music. And I have to admit, not what the community of faith would call Christian Music. I'm only going to deal with one band today but there are a few more. I will say this here though, some "Christian Music" has impacted my life. When I came back to God from my wanderings, "Christian Music" played a big part. Michael Card taught me much about the Father, Son and Spirit from scripture. It was important. But it only took me so far. It was all spelled out for me. It was right there, in full glory, in my face. It didn't take any digging. But from there when my life came back into the reality, that all things have not been set right in my world by this new found place in God, it let me down. I could not find the peace of God that my soul was longing for. It has been a long road to get to the place I find myself today. That road has been full of love, some peace, joy, revelation, hope, strong faith and many other wonderful things. But it has also been full of fear, anger, hopelessness at times, confusion, betterness, hurt, or should I say deep pain!!!! I could add more things to both of these lists but I think you get the point. I knew there was something missing. Or at least I saw it that way. That has changed today. What I was in need of was alot of paradigm shifts. I needed a new perspective. The band U2 was one of the biggest catalysts for this shift in perspective. Here were a few brothers of the faith that seemed to be experiencing all of the things I mentioned above in their journeys but seemed to have a steadiness that I did not have. Think of U2 and their lives as rock stars and that sounds strange coming from a believer, I know. I have listened to their music over the past 25 years and it has just been since 2001 that this has really come into focus for me. It has been since 2001 that this work has really started to take shape in my life. I will give you a little background at this time to try to explain how my experience brought me to were I am today.
Up to the point of the release of 'The Joshua Tree" I had been fine with U2. I rember exactly were I was and how listening to these songs made me feel. I was blown away to say the least. I feel music deeply and this was powerful. At least for the first several days. And then it started to fall apart for me. The song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was the begining of a period through the 90's where I did not listen to U2 much at all. The whole idea of a believer having touched something so real with the savior and being able to say, I still haven't found what I'm looking for just didn't work for me. So, U2 stoped working for me also. Now enters the dark years of my life. No, not days without God, days my view of God didn't work well. But I kept pressing on because I had found what I was looking for. Or so I thought. I'm learning today in a much clearer way a path heavily traveled where one thinks he is following after God and very might well be running from him. It is called RELIGION. Oh, it's beautifully describe as Christianity and the place christians learn about God but for me and alot of other, beautifully flawed folks I have had the privilege to meet, it was something else. It was a system that promised something that looked so awsome and gave me hope for, but in the end, kept me from him. I wanted it so bad. During the first year or so I thought I had found how to access it. It worked pretty well. But then things started to change. Looking back at it I was simply frustrated. Here's something very ugly that religion taught me. It was everybody else's fault. It had to be them because I was working at it much harder than they were. If they could only get their acts together the church would be the Bride. I'm glad we have a gracious God because this arogant believer would have been fried by the God I thought I was sharing with the lowly in the world. Then about a year into this journey I felt the Lord was leading me out of the mess ,of the organized church I was in, to grab the gold ring in God. I found a few other folks that wanted his best also. We were going for the best because we weren't going to settle for this cheap imitation. It was a few years into this new pursuit He exposed that arrogance also. Religion dies hard. Really hard!!!!! I remember a few good words that were spoken to us at the time. This one has proven to be true, as hard as getting me out of the system was, getting the system out of me was going to be much harder. It is still a work in progess. Here is another change, in my experience that followed over the next 14 years at the end of that period I found myself being drawn back to U2. It was post September 11 and I saw U2 on TV "Live from Boston" The Elevation Tour. Father started the work of ELEVATION in my life for real. U2 for me was back. And in a big and powerful way. They ended this show with the song "Walk On" and then went into a chorus of hallelujah, with Bono yelling out "thank you Master Jesus, come to the almighty, thank you Master Jesus. I remember weeping. HARD!!!!! I went out and bought my first U2 CD in 14 years. I listened and as Bono says, God walked through the room. The last song on the CD, "Grace" gave me hope at that moment for a relationship that was very strained for myself and my wife with another couple. In that hope some deep pain was exposed also. I wanted grace so bad where it wasn't being extended. It is coming slowly now 5 years later. Father has taught me so much through the fracture in this relationship, from that moment of hoping for grace and them not being able to walk in it with us. Or at least how I wanted them to. I learned how badly someone not being able to forgive or at least walk in forgiveness feels. I didn't ever want to walk in unforgiveness with anyone ever again. I started to cry out to the one who had shown me grace without measure and he heard my cry and answered and is still speaking. It reminds me of the song "40" I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit. Out of the miry clay. I will sing, sing a new song. I will sing, sing a new song. I always see grace as a beautiful song because of this. She makes time for people when they are in need of hearing a beautiful song because the weight of the world is too much to bare. Even when someone can't give it back grace does not hold back. Grace has proven itself to be the song he sings to me and wants me to sing to the world. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
So that was my introduction back to these brothers of the faith. I understood this clearly as God's way, and U2 for me, seemed like they were back. They really had never left. At that time, because of some of the paradigm shifts that were happening in my life I started to want some new U2 music to listen to. I thought of the period during the 90's I had missed out on. So I returned to the three recordings they produced during those years, hoping to find and touch some more of Father in their music. I could not believe what I found. "I Still Haven't Found Want I'm Looking For" wasn't a statement of, Jesus you're not it. It was a cry from someone who would not ever stop wrestling with a God who hides himself in his broken world so we have to go there to find him. And in the searching for him there something else happens. He touches the world through our searching for him under all the trash. That is what U2 was doing in the 90's. They actualy put those words in the song, "MOFO". The band, that alot of the christian community wrote off and layed pounds of judgement on, were on a better road than most of us, or at least the one I was on.
PART TWO TOMORROW
A song ringing in my head
Walk On U2
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing....
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...Stay safe tonight
Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme…
I don't know if many people come here to this blog. But for those that do, hopefully this song will bring some peace to were you might find yourself on any given day. It does me. I want to learn to live this life, this journey, free of the baggage it brings. Learning to live loved and love is all we have. Most perfectly in Him and then with each other. I read this from a book the other night and it fits here. The book is "Religious Nuts Political Fanatics" by Robert Vagacs, It was very encouraging. Here is a bit from the book.
Yahweh restores feeling to the deadened body and a numb mind. He gives the Wanderer a purpose, a destination, a new name. No longer Wanderer, the new name given is Sojourner. The destination is Home. The journey is long and the secret is to travel light.
WALK ON
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing....
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...Stay safe tonight
Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme…
I don't know if many people come here to this blog. But for those that do, hopefully this song will bring some peace to were you might find yourself on any given day. It does me. I want to learn to live this life, this journey, free of the baggage it brings. Learning to live loved and love is all we have. Most perfectly in Him and then with each other. I read this from a book the other night and it fits here. The book is "Religious Nuts Political Fanatics" by Robert Vagacs, It was very encouraging. Here is a bit from the book.
Yahweh restores feeling to the deadened body and a numb mind. He gives the Wanderer a purpose, a destination, a new name. No longer Wanderer, the new name given is Sojourner. The destination is Home. The journey is long and the secret is to travel light.
WALK ON
Monday, August 07, 2006
Where is the love?
I am posting a link to a blog that asks this question in light of the mid-east conflict. I will say myself I don't know what I can do about all of this. I know love is the only real answer. I know the path of violence will always come full circle some time in the future. I know the innocent life being lost today to war is always a tragedy. I know God's heart breaks watching us humans continue down the same path time after time. I know we in the church are called to be peace makers and the present day church seems all to willing most of the time to accept war as the answer to conflict. I wonder how much of this, even with believers, is mostly guided by our focus being on self preservation? I'm thankful Jesus had that self-preservation stuff already settled within himself when he faced the onslaught that came against him.
when you get to the link scroll down to Where is the love?
http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/
Spark(Bergquist/Detweiler)
It's not the spark that caused the fire
It was the air you breathed that fanned the flame
What you think you'll solve with violence
Will only spread like a disease
Until it all comes 'round again
Was John the only dreamer?
Sleep with one ear close to the ground
And wake up screaming
When we lay our cold weapons down
We'll wake up dreaming
Obsessions with self-preservation
Faded when I threw my fear away
It's not a thing you can imagine
You either lose your fear
Or spend your life with one foot in the grave
Is God the last romantic?
Sleep with one ear close to the ground
And wake up screaming
When we lay our cold weapons down
We'll wake up dreaming
Only love can turn this around
I wake up dreaming
Everything we've lost can be found
We'll wake up dreaming
when you get to the link scroll down to Where is the love?
http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/
Spark(Bergquist/Detweiler)
It's not the spark that caused the fire
It was the air you breathed that fanned the flame
What you think you'll solve with violence
Will only spread like a disease
Until it all comes 'round again
Was John the only dreamer?
Sleep with one ear close to the ground
And wake up screaming
When we lay our cold weapons down
We'll wake up dreaming
Obsessions with self-preservation
Faded when I threw my fear away
It's not a thing you can imagine
You either lose your fear
Or spend your life with one foot in the grave
Is God the last romantic?
Sleep with one ear close to the ground
And wake up screaming
When we lay our cold weapons down
We'll wake up dreaming
Only love can turn this around
I wake up dreaming
Everything we've lost can be found
We'll wake up dreaming
Saturday, August 05, 2006
THE SCRIPT
"I HAVE BEEN thinking about the ways in which the Bible is a critical alternative to the enmeshments in which we find ourselves in the church and in society. I have not, of course, escaped these enmeshments myself, but in any case I offer a series of 19 theses about the Bible in the church.
1. Everybody has a script. People live their lives by a script that is sometimes explicit but often implicit. That script may be one of the great meta-narratives created by Karl Marx or Adam Smith or it may be an unrecognized tribal mantra like, "My dad always said ..." The practice of the script evokes a self, yields a sense of purpose and provides security. When one engages in psychotherapy, the therapy often has to do with reexamining the script--or completely scuttling the script in favor of a new one, a process that we call conversion.
As the self is organized by a script, so are communities. And leaders of a community are skilled in appealing to that script.
2. We are scripted by a process of nurture, formation and socialization that might go under the rubric of liturgy. Some of the liturgy is intentional work, much of it is incidental; but all of it, especially for the young and especially for the family, involves modeling the way the world "really is." The script is inhaled along with every utterance and every gesture, because the script-bestowing community is engaged in the social construction of a distinct reality. A case in point is the observation of Mark Douglas that regular table prayers of thanksgiving are a primal way in which to challenge the market view of the supply and movement of valuable goods (see his book Confessing Christ in the 21st Century).
3. The dominant script of both selves and communities in our society, for both liberals and conservatives, is the script of therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life.
* I use the term therapeutic to refer to the assumption that there is a product or a treatment or a process to counteract every ache and pain and discomfort and trouble, so that life may be lived without inconvenience.
* I use the term technological, following Jacques Ellul, to refer to the assumption that everything can be fixed and made right through human ingenuity; there is no issue so complex or so remote that it cannot be solved.
* I say consumerist, because we live in a culture that believes that the whole world and all its resources are available to us without regard to the neighbor, that assumes more is better and that "if you want it, you need it." Thus there is now an advertisement that says: "It is not something you don't need; it is just that you haven't thought of it."
* The militarism that pervades our society exists to protect and maintain the system and to deliver and guarantee all that is needed for therapeutic technological consumerism. This militarism occupies much of the church, much of the national budget and much of the research program of universities.It is difficult to imagine life in our society outside the reach of this script; it is everywhere reiterated and legitimated.
4. This script--enacted through advertising, propaganda and ideology, especially in the several liturgies of television--promises to make us safe and happy. Therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism pervades our public life and promises us security and immunity from every threat. And if we shall be safe, then we shall be happy, for who could watch the ads for cars and beers and deodorants and give thought to such matters as the trade deficit or homelessness or the residue of anger and insanity left by the war or by destruction of the environment? This script, with its illusion of safety and happiness, invites life in a bubble that is absent of critical reflection.
5. That script has failed. I know this is not the conclusion that all would draw. It is, however, a lesson that is learned by the nations over and over again. It is clear to all but the right-wing radio talk people and the sponsoring neoconservatives that the reach of the American military in global ambition has served only to destabilize and to produce new and deep threats to our society. The charade of a national security state has left us completely vulnerable to the whim of the very enemies that our security posture has itself evoked. A by-product of such attempts at security, moreover, has served in astonishing ways to evoke acrimony in the body politic that makes our democratic decisionmaking processes nearly unworkable.
We are not safe, and we are not happy. The script is guaranteed to produce new depths of insecurity and new waves of unhappiness. And in response to new depths of insecurity and new waves of unhappiness, a greater resolve arises to close the deal according to the script, which produces ever new waves and new depths.
6. Health depends, for society and for its members, on disengaging from and relinquishing the failed script. This is a truth that is exceedingly difficult to utter, and even more difficult to imagine acting upon across the sociopolitical spectrum. And besides that, we are ambivalent about disengaging and relinquishing, because we are indeed well-off, comfortable, and by any standards better off than most of the world can imagine." Walter Brueggemann
1. Everybody has a script. People live their lives by a script that is sometimes explicit but often implicit. That script may be one of the great meta-narratives created by Karl Marx or Adam Smith or it may be an unrecognized tribal mantra like, "My dad always said ..." The practice of the script evokes a self, yields a sense of purpose and provides security. When one engages in psychotherapy, the therapy often has to do with reexamining the script--or completely scuttling the script in favor of a new one, a process that we call conversion.
As the self is organized by a script, so are communities. And leaders of a community are skilled in appealing to that script.
2. We are scripted by a process of nurture, formation and socialization that might go under the rubric of liturgy. Some of the liturgy is intentional work, much of it is incidental; but all of it, especially for the young and especially for the family, involves modeling the way the world "really is." The script is inhaled along with every utterance and every gesture, because the script-bestowing community is engaged in the social construction of a distinct reality. A case in point is the observation of Mark Douglas that regular table prayers of thanksgiving are a primal way in which to challenge the market view of the supply and movement of valuable goods (see his book Confessing Christ in the 21st Century).
3. The dominant script of both selves and communities in our society, for both liberals and conservatives, is the script of therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life.
* I use the term therapeutic to refer to the assumption that there is a product or a treatment or a process to counteract every ache and pain and discomfort and trouble, so that life may be lived without inconvenience.
* I use the term technological, following Jacques Ellul, to refer to the assumption that everything can be fixed and made right through human ingenuity; there is no issue so complex or so remote that it cannot be solved.
* I say consumerist, because we live in a culture that believes that the whole world and all its resources are available to us without regard to the neighbor, that assumes more is better and that "if you want it, you need it." Thus there is now an advertisement that says: "It is not something you don't need; it is just that you haven't thought of it."
* The militarism that pervades our society exists to protect and maintain the system and to deliver and guarantee all that is needed for therapeutic technological consumerism. This militarism occupies much of the church, much of the national budget and much of the research program of universities.It is difficult to imagine life in our society outside the reach of this script; it is everywhere reiterated and legitimated.
4. This script--enacted through advertising, propaganda and ideology, especially in the several liturgies of television--promises to make us safe and happy. Therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism pervades our public life and promises us security and immunity from every threat. And if we shall be safe, then we shall be happy, for who could watch the ads for cars and beers and deodorants and give thought to such matters as the trade deficit or homelessness or the residue of anger and insanity left by the war or by destruction of the environment? This script, with its illusion of safety and happiness, invites life in a bubble that is absent of critical reflection.
5. That script has failed. I know this is not the conclusion that all would draw. It is, however, a lesson that is learned by the nations over and over again. It is clear to all but the right-wing radio talk people and the sponsoring neoconservatives that the reach of the American military in global ambition has served only to destabilize and to produce new and deep threats to our society. The charade of a national security state has left us completely vulnerable to the whim of the very enemies that our security posture has itself evoked. A by-product of such attempts at security, moreover, has served in astonishing ways to evoke acrimony in the body politic that makes our democratic decisionmaking processes nearly unworkable.
We are not safe, and we are not happy. The script is guaranteed to produce new depths of insecurity and new waves of unhappiness. And in response to new depths of insecurity and new waves of unhappiness, a greater resolve arises to close the deal according to the script, which produces ever new waves and new depths.
6. Health depends, for society and for its members, on disengaging from and relinquishing the failed script. This is a truth that is exceedingly difficult to utter, and even more difficult to imagine acting upon across the sociopolitical spectrum. And besides that, we are ambivalent about disengaging and relinquishing, because we are indeed well-off, comfortable, and by any standards better off than most of the world can imagine." Walter Brueggemann
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