Tag Archives: Faith

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Merciful Monday.

Maturity is not a patchwork affair assembled out of bits and pieces of disciplines and devotions, doctrines and causes. It is all the operations of the Trinity in the practice of resurrection.

Eugene H. Peterson. Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Kindle Locations 494-495). Kindle Edition.

Yes, yes, I am still reading Peterson. Yes, I do still intend to write more posts as I work through this book. Nope, I’m not ready this morning.  I am reading and thinking, but not quite ready to write…beyond the above quotation.

The last month has felt like a whirlwind. Sports have been in high gear, school has been on that final push, Maddie has been testing the waters of turning 2. Curriculums for next year needed to be chosen, registration for tutorials had to happen. Add three birthdays within a month of each other and Mother’s Day into the mix…and I’m feeling ready for summer.

On the way to the orthodontist the other day we stopped by the library, I picked up a new book and barely made it past the first few pages. A Measure of My Days is about a young country doctor practicing in Maine. What caught me immediately was his description of his morning routine: waking up at 4:30, turning on music, making coffee and taking two hours to read and write. I breathed that in and realized how desperately I miss that sectioned off and protected time to feed my soul.

I have not done well with carving that time into my schedule in the last month, and my soul is weary and frazzled. I cannot survive just on the blessings of Sunday morning.  I need those moments of reading truth from others and finding their root in the Bible. I need that silence…or that music couched solitude…to grow my soul.

The quotation above from Peterson has held my attention, though, because just carving out that time is not enough. We cannot throw together a recipe of the right disciplines and devotions that will guarantee that we mature in the faith. We cannot expect to just mark the things off our list and feel that we have accomplished our pursuit of God sufficiently.

The working of the Trinity in our lives…the reality of the Resurrection in our souls…the breath of the Spirit in our bones…the imagination of the Creator in our minds.  This is what we need.

What I need.

I am frazzled with momentary things, with things that have their place and their importance, but which need to take their rightful place in the momentary and the mundane. My soul does not need to feed on the gossip of FaceBook and the trivia of television.

My soul needs the reality of the Resurrection. My soul needs the disciplines and the pursuit of God…but my soul needs that couched in the working of the Spirit.

I’m not sure that I can do 4:30. I’m not a morning person. School is done, though, and this morning 6am brought silence and peace and the calling to seek God.

I’m not seeking a patchwork of “right” things…I’m seeking God.

I am thankful that I can start afresh this morning and focus on Peterson’s book, focus on some things I want to think through. I am thankful for the refreshing of habits that have been neglected.

So…Merciful Monday this morning.  I have time to tidy the house and to sit at my table with headphones on and read. Think. Pray. Write. Repeat.

Care to join me?

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Resurrection Life starts…with the Church?!!

I have to admit I was a little frustrated that the first chapter in Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection was on….the church.

I have been involved in conversations around the Church for years. I have friends from all spectrums when it comes to dealing with the Body of Christ…some who have had a lifetime of good experiences, some who have been disillusioned, some who have been frustrated, some who have left it, some who have been (legitimately) abused within the Body of Christ.  Sometimes I feel like I have exhausted the conversation.

Myself, I have had overall good experiences, with some that give me a reality check on the sinful humanity that we are who make up the Body of Christ. Still…I love the fellowship we are part of right now. I love the community and conversations and the worship, I love the missions we support and are involved with, I love the influence on my kids. I look forward to being with this group of people, and I am challenged by the teaching and the call to follow Jesus.  So, as I was reading Peterson’s book, with the hope of understanding better what it means to walk in the reality of the Resurrection…I thought, “ho, hum…we’ll get the church discussion out of the way.”

Nothing new.

Then I read this:

Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines: death of nations, death of civilization, death of marriage, death of careers, obituaries without end. Death by war, death by murder, death by accident, death by starvation. Death by electric chair, lethal injection, and hanging. The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and participate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word, Jesus life. This practice is not a vague wish upwards but comprises a number of discrete but interlocking acts that maintain a credible and faithful way of life, Real Life, in a world preoccupied with death and the devil.

Eugene H. Peterson. Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Kindle Locations 154-158). Kindle Edition.

Man that rang truth to me…in a world where death gets the biggest headlines. In the midst of this is a named people….Sarah, Steve, Noelle, Michael, Anita, Kim, Stephanie, Jill, Bryan, Kevin, Jim, Ryan, Andrew, Alyson, Bill….practicing a life of resurrection. It is not hap-hazard. It does not happen to us in a vague way; something that happens without our notice. Our coming together in worship and in the participation of resurrection life is an intentional, deliberate decision.  Life.

Ahhh….the product of ‘a number of discrete but interlocking acts that maintain a credible and faithful way of life, Real Life, in a world preoccupied with death and the devil.’

Discrete but interlocking.

Going to worship with the community of believers. Intentionally joining with others and declaring that God IS. That He hears our worship and is worthy. Intentionally turning our attention toward Him and recognizing Who He is and giving testimony to what He has done.

Intentional. Life over death.

The Lord’s Table…taking in the bread and the wine as recognition and embrace of the sacrifice and the redemption and the saving and the eternity altering act of God.

The Word. Intentionally turning our attention to the Word of God…believing that it is the Word of God and that it has bearing on our lives. Intentionally turning our attention to the testimony of the Spirit that this is Truth.

All these seemingly simple acts….added to the conversations and the involving in others’ lives…are part of Resurrection Life.

More, though….the resurrection plays out in our lives in ‘improvisation’….

The practice of resurrection encourages improvisation on the basic resurrection story as given in our Scriptures and revealed in Jesus. Thousands of derivative unanticipated resurrection details proliferate across the landscape. The company of people who practice resurrection replicates the way of Jesus on the highways and byways named and numbered on all the maps of the world.

This is the church.

The practice of resurrection is not an attack on the world of death; it is a nonviolent embrace of life in the country of death. It is an open invitation to live eternity in time.

Eugene H. Peterson. Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Kindle Locations 162-165). Kindle Edition.

I love this. This is what I needed to hear….especially the last line:  it is not an attack on the world of death, but an embrace of life in the country of death.

Worship, church, reading the Word, prayer…living life in relationship with other believers and hearing the testimony of God’s acts of resurrection in their lives…this is an invitation to live eternity in time.

We are not consumed with death. We are consumed with life.

Real life.

Life that is founded in the Resurrection of God. Life that is informed by the Spirit and is altered from the death we once knew.

There is more to this chapter, but I wanted to post just this for today. There is much here to think on, to pray on and to talk about. I so hope even just these brief quotations breath life to you as it has done to me this morning!!  But beyond that swell of hope…what does it mean. How does it affect how we view church.

Have you ever thought of Church as being part of the Resurrection life….a key element, however ordinary, in establishing the power and the reality of the Resurrection in your life?

Those who have been damaged by the church…how do we overcome that fear or hostility or anger or disappointment and come to a place where the Church again breathes life into our souls?

This weekend as we prepare to “go to” Church…how can we go with a different mindset? A mindset that intentionally approaches the community worship as an act of embracing life in a country of death?

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Touching like Jesus

We had a brief sunny day yesterday, however the clouds and rain and grey have greeted us again this morning. This has been a bit unusual for our area…more grey than we are used to, and people are feeling the impact. After living for 7 years up in Lynden, Washington and Vancouver, BC it feels comfortable to me. I even like the mornings like this..the quiet and the still. The sunshine makes me want to run out and start doing things; the rain and the overcast skies helps me be still and quiet for a bit.

This is my 100th post on this blog…which seems rather amazing. I’m thankful for a place to think out loud, and a place where I find that others are thinking or struggling or rejoicing with the same things.

We need that connection, and the world of the internet has opened up so many more resources for us to connect. I am amazed by how my kids already connect with people through games and other venues on the internet. Obviously there can be great pitfalls and dangers…but there can be such great moments when we find something that triggers a deeper thought or triggers a connection.

Still…there is a huge gap when we relate through the internet. When we place our significance in our associations made through quick comments. When we determine if we are funny enough or smart enough or thoughtful enough to warrant a ‘like’ or a ‘favorite’. I worry some about my kids and how they will navigate this new venue of peer pressure and standards. Will they think only in terms of fast and short encounters, or will they develop the ability to think well and to follow a discussion through logically and with tenderness and patience? Of course, my goal is to provide the foundation for that thinking. For that encounter.

I posted awhile back a few links to a discussion TED radio hour about the impact of the internet and computers on personal interactions. There were two that deeply grabbed my attention…one a woman who watched as her colleagues rejoiced as an elderly nursing home patient ‘connected’ with a robotic seal. They were thrilled that finally this woman had found something she could pour her heart out to about the loss of a child. The woman was suddenly aware of the impact as this group of people passed off their responsibility to connect with another human…to a robotic seal. And they thought through all the possibilities of passing this seal on to all those lonely people out there…with no awareness that those people longed for a human touch, not yet another way to be isolated.

The other speaker who demanded my attention was a doctor who spoke about the human touch. He spoke of all the wonderful advances that medicine had seen through computers and technoloty…qll testing and information that could now be gathered. And yet, he noted that the one thing that computers and technology will never be able to replicate or replace is human touch. Not only because the doctor is able to feel things intuitively through his touch, but because that human touch means so much to the patient.

Through the wonders of technology I was met with a short video this morning. Through Facebook a friend suggested I watch this video as we move through the experience of caring for my mother in her dementia.  I have seen first hand how she responds to the touch of my father…how when she is fearful at night she responds to her hand being held, to the touch of another. I have also seen the shells of people as they are in nursing homes who have been left in the corner and have no interaction. I am not placing blame…it is so difficult to see a loved one deteriorate…and yet, to be like the woman in this video. To be this compassionate and this patient…and this aware of the needs of those around us. Not just when they reach this point of utter isolation, but to be aware as we move through our day…to physically and spiritually touch the people around us in a way that brings healing and brings compassion.

To be Jesus to those around us. That sounds trite or cliche…but watch this video and I think you will agree with me that this is the heart of a savior who embraced us in our ugliness and our sin and our brokenness…who reached out and took on our humanity in order to touch us and awaken us to the knowledge that we are cared for and we are loved…and we matter and we are not alone. To be like this woman….would be to be much like Jesus, and that would be a very worthy goal:

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He is risen!

It has been a rainy,grey day here. Not what I think of for Easter morning…but it did not put a damper on the reality.

Christ broke the barriers. It is done. He has risen.

One last sonnet from Malcolm Guite:

Easter Dawn

He blesses every love which weeps and grieves

And now he blesses hers who stood and wept

And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s

Last touching place, but watched as low light crept

Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs

A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.

She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,

Or recognise the Gardener standing there.

She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,

Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light

That brightens as she chokes out her reply

‘They took my love away, my day is night’

And then she hears her name, she hears Love say

The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.