Feeling settled

You have riches and freedom here [in the West], but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers, why don't you use them in the search for love? Lech Walesa (leader of Poland's anti-communist movement in the 1980s)

Feeling comfortable can lead easily to complacency. Summer is the season of fresh fruit and exotic tasty fruits. I transition from dried to fresh but there are some that are large and tasteless. These have been forced, picked early and ripened en route. Our lives are often tasteless and full of stuff without meaning or shape. It was Augustine who said in his autobiography that he was restless until he found his rest in God. Perhaps we need to maintain a pilgrim-on-a-journey stance right through our lives.

In Allport's work, a psychologist of religion, the idea of an intrinsic and extrinsic faith was developed. The latter is a faith grounded in practices attending church, Bible studies etc. The former, rooted in internal values and motivation. Followers have developed a further category of quest where seemingly this dimension is a contributor to significant maturity. We get stuck and often in the extrinsic place. We sound and look right but there is no interior transformation.

This last weekend I was speaking at a church conference about the dangers of our current image culture it's shallowness and meaninglessness. We are so focussed on being noticed and recognized and looking right. This has been a shift from our idol culture which placed money, sex, and power as gods to be worshiped. I wondered if we need to think of ourselves as icons either as windows to God or representations of God. if we are are open and willing we can truly be God's artworks.

Another try at clearing up

Well. What can I say? return from speaking at a church retreat on Romans 12 and now I need to try and tackle the home again. Why is there some much junk mail? I have so much paper which goes straight into the recycling bin at the front door and still my place is full!

The Getting Things Done (GTD) empire talks about have a central point bin/box or trays where everything ends up. I suspect that is the beginning of the problem and I just don't have that. I need to work on that before anything else except I have no space to generate that gathering point!

Still I've decided to continue the slow move to digitize large portions of my world. The slow ripping of CD's onto my hard drive and boxing up the CD's which have occupied a large amount of space around the apartment. Today I boxed up songbooks that I not longer use. But I have to be far more drastic soon.

I'm still struggling a but but the lead balloon of SAD isn't really there at the moment. Just the energy to keep at things until everything is tidied up. God give me strength and courage to deal with all this stuff.

Got to get more stuff out of the front door. Yet biking home yesterday I saw 4 bikes in the garbage. One folding one made it home with me because the frame is in better condition than 2 other frames I have. Now I have to decide how to consolidate the bits and make another good bike before getting rid of the excess parts.

Friends Reunited

Encouragment comes in many different ways. I'm on the website Friends Reunited and got an email recently from my past, in the region of 27-30 years ago. That's really the past! Keith from my Cru days. I knew him as a 12 year old and I was one of his youth leaders.

Sometimes you never know whether you made a difference or not but to find out he has remained in the faith and serving in leadership is a breath of fresh cool air. I've been reading a book on mentoring and will be posting a book review here soon. One of the things the book raises about mentoring and working with young people is the issue of legacy. Do we leave no trace? Ascribing to the idea of negative ecological footprint no-one ever knew you were there or do we leave legacies.

Several of my recent internationals have struggled intensely but I am genuinely touched when one said "I don't know God but I know you!" and another "[God] sent me you. It means that he haven't abandon me yet."

Who am I?

... it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

I am more that what I do. I certainly am far more than what I make financially. I am certainly more than I feel. I'm a little worried about the Fall and September. The Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) I had last year was pretty bad and now I suspect I've been suffering for perhaps 2 years because I seem to have more energy than I've had for a long time. Yet I know I'm slowing down and I don't feel as great. But I hope things will change.

There are two signficant departures both Jen. jen who I've memtored and been around for many years through courtship and going to Harvard to eventually marrying and now off to Africa dn the great fearful and challenging experience. Also a dear friend from Regis is leaving the city and I will miss Jen discovering that combat is not the only model for academics but perhaps co-operation and friendship. We are more than our feelings and moods we are God's beloved children. So much work to be done here.

A lovely arrangement

I'm posting this here on my main blog because it lifted me when I watched it. Friday I went to the Music Garden and looked at the flowers and garden arrangment while listening to Bach unaccompanied cello suite 1. I realised that music can reinterpret an external experience in a different way. The music becomes a soundtrack and narrates experience into new and differing ways.

psalm 100

I was reworking psalm 100 for a small worship service recently.

Shout! Shout! Yell it all out.
I'm happy Lord
That - your glory, your majesty
your joy fills the earth
Everyone embrace the very fact
That- we are his artworks and his craftsmanship
We are his family,sitting and eating at his table.

Shout! Shout! Yell it all out.
We are thankful, grateful,
witnesses full of feelings of seen grace.
For the Lord is good
and his love endures forever.
For the Lord's faithfulness fill all of Time.

moving in the right direction

I've bought an electric toothbrush. The first time I've owned one but perhaps a little late because of the condition of my teeth. Somehow I've really got to get enough courage to find a dentist and start the long course of treatment. I'm blessed with a benefits plan that covers sedation but still have to find that important movement in myself.

I have to find a dentist. A tiny step but huge for me as I deal with my fear of dentists. The electric toothbrush is too little too late but still a step in the right direction.

There is that Chinese saying that the journey of a thousand li begins with one step. I would add in the right direction.

As I prepare to speak for a church conference, I am pondering issues for Christians around image. How Western culture and many others affected by it are now an image culture. The trouble with image culture is its superficiality. It's all about looking right and sounding right but not about character and substance. Dealing with the core nature of the human person. Perhaps we are less a culture fixated with idols things that replace God and now focused on self and image. (see video series Century of the Self here) Yet perhaps we should be icons either in the classical spiritual sense of windows through which others can see God or in computer terms as points which lead to or represent a program or file in a visible way.

Videotape Radiohead

I've been absent from blogging for over a month which has been a signficant amount of time for me. The problem is dial-up and bad connectivity and time to change provider. Sorry I'll be remedying things.

Sometimes the people you hang out with are great and I'm really blessed. I've been playing my electric cello at CATM for services avbout once a month and I really enjoy working with the pastor Matthew who also is the music mover and shaker. Infact a great worship arts and video maker as well. He ended up in the Radiohead video last summer, the older guy with the beard.

A mute point

I haven't posted in a few weeks. problems of internet connections and adapting to dial-up. I'm the middle of summer school learning how to refine my thesis proposal. We learn together and the most interesting thing is so many of us seem to be working on aspects of discipling or spiritual formation. Why is the church shrinking? Even the larger churches are staying the same size even though there are many new people joining... There seems to be this issue that people are leaving as fast as they arrive at best and worst simply leaving and not being replaced.

One of my fellow D.Min students figures it is all about seriousness. I agree entirely somehow the loss of conviction, motivation and even drive. I've been asking why so many twenty somethings lose their passion and vaitality of faith sometime after leaving university. It's mute point but perhaps our passion is based on questioning and when everything is up for grabs.

Christlikeness

“To facilitate this life with God, we become willing to do whatever we need to do to connect with God in the next ten minutes – even if it looks very different from what the people around us do or what has been described in a book. As we connect with God, we change.” (20)

If you are dissatisfied with your devotional life and the practice of daily Bible reading then Jan's book is a great introduction to Ignatian Gospel contemplation and other spiritual disciplines. What seems to set it apart is that rather than presenting the disciplines, nor presenting them as methods for change, it authentically “places Jesus in the center of your vision and lets Jesus lead...” This is more than a devotional read it seeks to help us rediscover Jesus in a transformative way as we attend soul school. I found much more a multilevel and multifaceted curriculum thus it is not something you do once rather it introduces you to the reflective life. Thus each chapter can be repeated with new insights that we might fulfill our calling to be truly Christlike. However this book is not a manual it contains many personal experiences and insights from her life and therefore it is humane and reasonable. Living or at least seeking to live a Christlike life is not for the elite but for all of us. It is simply a matter of the will and motives.

What spirituality style are you?

The people at Natural Church Development are working on a new inventory about spirituality. You might like to try it at www.3colorsofyourspirituality.org .

I've completed their online survey and I'm interested that I seem pretty balanced now. Ten years ago it would have been different.

Rational Style - 121 ; Doctrinal Style - 111 ; Scripture-driven Style - 120 ; Sharing Style - 120 ; Ascetic Style - 115 ; Enthusiastic Style - 110 ; Mystical Style - 122 ; Sacramental Style - 110 ; Sensory Style - 100 ;

Rumours of Glory

"The Sunday morning attendance shows how popular the church is. The Sunday evening attendance shows how popular the preacher is. The prayer meeting attendance shows how popular God is." source unknown.

Bruce Cockburn's song Rumours of Glory has been on my mind for the last 10 days or so. We need a constant experience or flashes of glory to maintain our faith and passion for God. Even in the ambivalence and pain of life, even in the uncertainties or struggles with believing any good can come out of a situation we need rumours of glory. This is hope, the reality of living faithful lives. Glimpses of something better than gold - God.

Smiles mixed with curses - The crowd disperses - About whom no details are known - Each one alone yet not alone - Behind the pain/fear - Etched on the faces - Something is shining - Like gold but better - Rumours of glory Bruce Cockburn

I live this way. This is foundational. This is the core. This is my reason and meaning. This has been laid bare in many ways recently and yet my heart is heavy because so many don't hear or see the rumours or glimpses of the glory of God in their lives. This is what discernment is all about. Not the happy false grin but joy that wells up even in the most difficult situations.