Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Get Down on My Knees?

Today's reading from the "Rule of Benedict""
The third degree of humility is that a person
for love of God
submit himself to his Superior in all obedience,
imitating the Lord, of whom the Apostle says,
"He became obedient even unto death."


Submit to a superior? Or to anyone else? Get down on my knees? Humility only extends so far in our time. And certainly not as far as consenting to changing our ways, our approach, or our attitude, just because someone asks us to do so. The theme song of the American soul is probably more like the country-western "You Can Take This Job and Shove It", than the church hymn, "Trust and Obey". We are convinced that the way to happiness and fulfillment lies continually in the direction of self-assertion.

It might be worthwhile--and instructive--for each of us to try some experiments in humility and obedience. Keep still when someone criticizes you, and learn what there is to be learned from the criticism. Consent to others' concerns or complaints with an open mind and heart, so far as we can. Try to find ways to adapt to others' notions of what is right in some situation. Bite our tongues before we speak sharply about others' behavior or character. Listen carefully to the supervisor; she might have something valuable to say. Allow children and vulnerable people to be our "bosses"; let their needs tell us what to do with our day and with our society. Comply with what the earth itself commands when it comes to sustainable living and health for the creatures inhabiting the globe. And attend to the "still small voice" within, which always speaks wisely--with truth, peaceability, and generous love for all.

Sister Joan Chittister has written that she thinks humility is the most needed, and dangerously missing virtue, of our time. I wish I thought she was wrong.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

How Hard Can It Be to Follow Jesus?

How hard can it be to follow Jesus?

Kathy Neil, our Children and Youth Ministry Coordinator, also a farmer, remarked today in staff meeting that she thinks church workers have an easier time "being Christians" than people with other callings. She remembers how difficult it was for her to remember to be a Christian while she was doing her daily work on her farm, and how Sunday Church always seemed like a "different world" from the rest of the week.

I guess there is something to what she says. After all, around the church one is at least encouraged to think about faith, to pray, to worship and to serve others. It's a routine part of our "professional" days. We also try to behave well in our relationships with our sisters and brothers--with greater and lesser degrees of success on any given day.

I know that some people cope with the weekly challenge to live their faith with interesting methods. Some have a very brief morning, noon and evening prayer. I know one church member who says that his first spoken words each day are, "Good morning, Jesus!" It must work; he is a person of exemplary Christian service!

Others use what Richard Foster used to call "flash prayers", beamed at the persons around them. Some use their work computers to "tune in" to favorite devotional web-sites or blogs, or they tune in to Christian radio stations, or to National Public Radio, depending on their sense of what Christian conscience asks of them. Some just deliberately set out to be kind and supportive. I know one church member, a manager in a local corporation who says, "I used to be pretty hard to work for, but I'm learning to try to support and encourage the people I am around." This person is now a noteworthy encourager to many people in our church.

Some Christians have also learned to practice their faith by being innovators, courageous observers and honest truth-tellers at their workplaces. That is not an easy job, but they do it because ultimately they have a conviction that everyone in that workplace wants to do the best they can, to give excellence.

By the way, serving on a church staff is no instant means to a perfected Christian life. One of the things nearly every new church worker suffers, sooner or later, is the let-down of disappointment that church staff-workers are "just like everyone else". Yep, we are. We ache, worry, scold, avoid, gossip,gripe and so forth, just like everyone else. The one redeeming thing about this is that no one is proud of it, and because of this we can face up to and change such things when they happen. Thankfully, whether we work in a church, on a dairy farm, as a college professor, or as a store clerk, "the grace of God is more than sufficient" for our needs--and our limitations. Amen? Somebody say, Amen!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Surveillance?

Today's reading from the "Rule of Benedict" is enough to make you uneasy.
In an electronic information age, in a credit-card society, exacerbated by government surveillance of civilian electronic traffic and calls, we are already queasy about reduced privacy and confidentiality. It is not especially reassuring today to hear that God has also assigned angels to monitor and report our deeds, though it can hardly have seemed all that great in the early 5th century CE either.

But...after we have said to the government or to some corporation, "This is none of your business!", it is still a little more difficult to make that stick with God. The God who is closer to us than our own self, who knows us from the womb, is assuredly aware of our freedoms--and also our flaws and failures, and God suffers them more deeply than we ever will. Given my shortcomings, I appreciate the word of grace here, "In kindness, God awaits our reformation." I don't want to keep God waiting, but my reformation could take a while!

We must be on our guard, therefore, against evil desires,
for death lies close by the gate of pleasure.
Hence the Scripture gives this command:
"Go not after your concupiscences" (Eccles. 18:30).


So therefore,
since the eyes of the Lord observe the good and the evil (Prov. 15:3)
and the Lord is always looking down from heaven
on the children of earth
"to see if there be anyone who understands and seeks God" (Ps. 13:2),
and since our deeds are daily,
day and night,
reported to the Lord by the Angels assigned to us,
we must constantly beware, brethren,
as the Prophet says in the Psalm,
lest at any time God see us falling into evil ways
and becoming unprofitable (Ps. 13:3);
and lest, having spared us for the present
because in His kindness He awaits our reformation,
He say to us in the future,
"These things you did, and I held My peace" (Ps. 49:21).

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Subdued, Not Profitless, Walks

Thoreau's journal from January 27--our contemporary separated from us by only 150 years or so...

When you think that your walk is profitless and a failure, and you can hardly persuade yourself (to go on--ed.), it is on the point of being a success, for then you are in that subdued and knocking mood to which Nature never fails to open.

Though we favor quick successes, and many of them, and want certainty about our personal life-plans these days, I agree with Mr. Thoreau that there is often wisdom to a journey that is, as another philosopher says,"a long faithfulness in one direction." Were we to turn back, or to change course, each time we met an obstacle, a disappointment, or suffering, or even each time that we had a new and enthusiastic thought or dream about how things could be, there is no guarantee that we would finally "get" anywhere that fidelity to a single, good path wouldn't have taken us in the first place. One Christian writer warns that the Devil just loves to see us launch out on new ventures without really completing any that we have previously begun. This is why the monastics advocate the virtue of stability.

I flinch in my soul every time I hear someone explaining to their friends that it seems that God has called them away to a new cause, a new church, a new community, a new love, etc. Far more interesting to my mind are those who remain where they are, and figure out how to renew themselves on the same old walk they've been taking. I just led a funeral this week for a Northfield United Methodist church-man, a rare man in these times because he lived his entire life, and raised his own family, in the same farmhouse and on the same five acres, which his father first made their home. This man was a bee-keeper and truck-farmer all his days, just as his father was before him. I never heard him say that his life and walk were unprofitable just because they ended in the same house where they began. I would say he felt that Nature confirmed the value of his walk with each jar of honey he and the bees harvested.

Friday, January 26, 2007

What Does God Want More?

It's not true that all the saints are United Methodists. There are a few exceptions.

Among your spiritual traveling companions, you may want to include the 16th century Roman Catholic bishop, Francis De Sales, who was charged with re-organizing the Catholic Church in areas where John Calvin's followers had become predominant. His spirituality and piety were actually surprisingly similar to Calvin's Institutes. Francis De Sales' day on the Christian calendar occured a couple of days ago, but his voice is worth hearing and remembering at any time on our walk. He was a gifted preacher, spiritual director and writer. Now, he is considered a patron saint for journalists. Here are some of his spiritual counsels:

"Just trust in the Lord and the Lord will continue to lead you safely in all things. Where you cannot walk, He will carry you in His arms."

"Take courage, and turn troubles which you cannot remedy into material for progress and maturity."

"Do everything calmly and peacefully. Do as much as you can as well as you can."

"Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, not even if the world seems upset. If you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply."

And as a great question applied to discerning which path to take on some difficult decision between good choices: "What does God want more?"

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

A Hair's Breadth Aside from Our Usual Path

When I was "stuck", literally for over 10 years, in one of the great
impasses of my life, and felt I could not bring it to a resolution, one
of the best things I finally did was to set a deadline for a choice, and
then go out looking for information or counsel about that choice from
sources and persons I had never consulted before. When I could view and
hear about my life "with fresh senses" by getting outside my usual
patterns of thought and emotion, I could finally decide and act without
debilitating regret about taking one path and leaving another untaken.
Thoreau's journal touches on this today. He is describing our
accustomed attitudes toward winter and challenging his neighbors and
readers to see a hard, cold winter not as a necessary "evil", but as a
functional necessity to which great beauty has been added by "the
artist". He re-framed and gave a new sort of appreciation to his
reality.

from Henry David Thoreau's Journal for December 11, 1856

It (is) only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon,
however familiar, from a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or
routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. Only
what we have touched and worn is trivial,-our scurf, repetition,
tradition, conformity. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be
inspired.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Roots and Routes

A friend sent me an e-mail of advices for the new year from the Dalai Lama.
I've no idea if they're authentic or not...

At least once a year, go someplace new in the world.

This seems to be good counsel for expanding our horizons, though I remember very well the folk tale about the man who travelled a great distance seeking treasure, only to find it hidden in his home when he returned. Travel may broaden, but it also threatens. I had a relative who travelled to France for about one dangerous month many years ago, and he came home with odd "treasure": a noticeable French accent that, like some mysterious foreign "bug", never has quite left his system. Of course, he was young and malleable; his phonetics were easily affected.

My wife and I are planning a trip to Italy this spring, and I don't expect to bring much booty home: a few phrases of Italian and maybe a beret or something, but the important thing about the trip, to my way of thinking, is that I should come home again as a better-informed, returning tourist, and not as some expatriate Italian. Deep roots make good substitutes for long routes.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Walking by Another's Judgment

Here below is part of today's reading from the Rule of Benedict. Who understands such thoughts in these times? I don't mean, who has a monastic inclination to walk the way an Abbot instructs, but who has a vocation of listening for, and responding immediately to, the voice of God?

In my household, we call to each other asking for help on this or that, and the response is often, "Just a minute! Don't you know I'm busy!" I am the worst offender. I wonder how often God has called to me, and I've delayed answering? I wonder if we finally stop listening to God and don't even notice what God asks any more, or does God just call out louder and louder until we get it? I hope it's the latter. I would rather be annoyed with God's voice than content with God's silence.

not living according to their own choice
nor obeying their own desires and pleasures
but walking by another's judgment and command,
they dwell in monasteries and desire to have an Abbot over them.
Assuredly such as these are living up to that maxim of the Lord
in which He says,
"I have come not to do My own will,
but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38).

Sunday, January 21, 2007

"Let This Suffice..."

Benedict was an early monastic leader. He founded the Benedictine order which was committed to virtues like humility and simplicity. The key acts of the order were prayer, study and service. The reading below is a selection from the Rule of Benedict. It has to do with how we live--and the resources we expend.

Though it rings with an unfamiliarly authoritative voice to us today, the underlying values which are affirmed are enduring ones and should guide us in each spiritual journey or life of Christian discipleship.

(1) How much stuff is "sufficient" for a meaningful life and ministry?

(2) How can we continually reduce the number of things or possessions which we consider to be our "private property" and hence not available for our neighbor's needs?

(3) How can our communities assure that everyone has "all the necessary articles", food, relationships, education, health care, training and so forth, according to individual needs and capacities?

If we answer these three questions well, we contribute to the well-being, unity and purposefulness of our community. If we answer these questions dishonestly, either keeping and using too much ourselves, or refusing the necessities to others, then we add to the burdens of the global community and open ourselves to the "retribution of God". Let's toy with the thought that global warming, terrorism, and violent tensions around our world today have long cords which tangle up with many dishonest answers to this one question: Do you have what you need and no more? Or better still, do you love God and neighbor as much as you love yourself?


For bedding let this suffice:
a mattress, a blanket, a coverlet and a pillow.

The beds, moreover, are to be examined frequently by the Abbot,
to see if any private property be found in them.
If anyone should be found to have something
that he did not receive from the Abbot,
let him undergo the most severe discipline.

And in order that this vice of private ownership
may be cut out by the roots,
the Abbot should provide all the necessary articles:
cowl, tunic, stockings, shoes, belt,
knife, stylus, needle, handkerchief, writing tablets;
that all pretext of need may be taken away.
Yet the Abbot should always keep in mind
the sentence from the Acts of the Apostles
that "distribution was made to each according as anyone had need" (Acts 4:35).
In this manner, therefore,
let the Abbot consider weaknesses of the needy
and not the ill-will of the envious.
But in all his decisions
let him think about the retribution of God.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Hell and Damnation Lite

If you read Thoreau's journal entry (below), you will notice that he was pretty unhappy that a possession had been taken from him, but he also had perspective on his loss. Enough so, he could satirize his own and others' tendencies to get really upset about the small stuff.

How much of what would someone need to do to you for you to sincerely condemn them to the fires of Hell? Again, if you're not going to condemn them to Hell after all, then why are you mistreating them with gossip to your friends, or with silent accusations, or with personal distancing and unfair thoughts? Why do you prefer a grudge to a relationship? I expect Thoreau's point about his lost dipper was that in its place he made the surprise discovery of his recriminating self, a self that deserved to be laughed off. The same goes for us. Whenever I think something has been unfairly taken from "me", I need to think for some time about who "I" am. How could anything be taken from me? "I am the very least of all the saints..." (Ephesians 3:8).

Thoreau's Journal from January 17, 1852
One day two young woman—a Sunday—stopped at the door of my hut and asked for some water. I answered that I had no cold water but I would lend them a dipper. They never returned the dipper, and I had a right to suppose they came to steal. They were a disgrace to their sex and to humanity. Pariahs of the moral world. Evil spirits that thirsted not for water but threw the dipper into the lake. Such as Dante saw. What the lake to them but liquid fire and brimstone? They will never know peace till they have returned the dipper. In all the worlds this is decreed.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Thinking about What God Accepts and Rejects

While you are on your "walk" today, wherever that may take you, you might want to spend some time thinking about what God accepts and rejects. In the past 24 hours I have been part of several very powerful personal conversations on the question of inclusion of gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgendered persons in Christian churches.

In one instance, I listened to a woman, kind and gentle in all things, who feels deep chords of ambivalent emotion toward gay and lesbian persons. She would guarantee most civil and employment rights for them, and believes they belong in Christian community, and understands that many may be genetically oriented with no likelihood that they will change. On the other hand, she is concerned for children raised by gay or lesbian parents, feeling this would be "unfair" to the children, and thinks that such persons should not be teachers or leaders in our churches.

In another conversation, I heard from a male friend who just wants nothing to do with the inclusion of gays; for him, homosexual practices are a straightforward breaking of God's laws. In still another case, I heard from a very conservative couple in our church who, because they know gay and lesbian persons, cannot find it in their hearts to exclude them from the churches, or to believe that their orientation and practices are sinful. Another friend read part of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail", which is addressed to "moderate" Christians in the South who would not stand up for racial justice, and this friend left dangling in the air the thought that Christians who remain silent today about the civil and religious rights of gay and lesbian persons are committing the same moral error.

When I asked a sister, Elizabeth Macaulay, a pastor in a church in Minneapolis, what she thought about these things, she sent a powerful and beautiful message, only part of which I share with you here. She allowed that there was room for uncertainty, "moderates", disagreements and ambivalence among Christian sisters and brothers; her deepest concern was that there should not be silent disregard:

Here is what I think. My UCC Pastor father was transgendered. He lived a
private hell for near five decades until he figured out that his way of
being was not so mightily sinful and perverted. Had the church been open
and spoken of the varieties of gifts in sexual orientation and being, I
believe he would be alive yet today. He tried to commit suicide when he was
45. The scars on his heart from that and from the constant wounding of the
shame and loneliness of being other left him open to a massive heart attack
at 69. My take is he died from a battered heart.

I have watched beloveds. People exquisite in their gifting and beauty who
are on the rack because they have to live closeted lives in the church they
are called to serve as ordained pastors. How can this be the gift of
baptism? How can this be the will of the Holy?

I have ministered to and with people who have felt excluded, denied, shamed,
and humiliated by a Body meant to be about justice, compassion and grace.
The silence is as deadly as anything, because in the silence is the
acknowledgement that this "other" way of loving, this somehow less than
seemly sense that life is made complete in the soul of one of the same
gender, this way of loving is called abomination. At the very time when
teen suicides of lgbt youth continue to be racked up on the unforgiving
abacus of our culture, the very Body called to knit and gentle and celebrate
and love turns a deaf and dumb ear.

I have decided that if I don't speak a word, I am that silence. I am that
system that somehow believes that God would create people with an
orientation merely to watch them twist in agony, silence, and shame. I
don't believe God to be that kind of creator. I don't believe that one
chooses this way of living and loving. Good God, who would choose to be the
object of hatred and scorn?

Once to every man (or woman) and nation...

I just don't know how to be moderate around this. I just don't.


Well, I don't have the answers today. But I am walking with the questions, and I am thinking about what God accepts and what God rejects.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Waffle House at a Glance

Friends, things have been a little too theological and churchly around here lately.

If you are driving to Gulfport, Mississippi, or anyplace else in the South, to help restore the people to their land, there should be many opportunities along the way to indulge in the most important "foreign" cultural experience any Minnesotan ever shares when they travel southward--meals at Waffle House. There are, according to the WH official website, 1500 Waffle Houses in 25 states. Unfortunately, there are none in Northfield, Minnesota. I have had to drive at least as far as the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri once a year for ever to get to my "happy place".

It is not lost on me that this is roughly the same distance and route in reverse that Jessie and Frank James, and the Younger Brothers, used to invade Northfield from Missouri in 1876. This sensitizes me to the possibility that they did not want to rob the bank, but rather were seeking new dining experiences, the foods of the Scandinavian and German cultures found here. It may be that their Missouri accents were just misunderstood by the natives of this community. An immigrant myself to Minnesota from Missouri at age 14, I well remember how I struggled to be understood by the locals.

I personally recommend going to a WH some time after 11 p.m. and before 5 a.m., then you order the biggest combo platter you can get--waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, potatoes, coffee, oj, and,of course, grits. If the table in your booth is not tacky with syrup spills, move on to the next booth until you find one that is.Otherwise, the atmosphere is all wrong.

Every time I go into a WH, I imagine Jesus at the griddle! Waffle House is probably the most popular "meditating over the rim of a coffee cup" franchise ever created.I am betting that all the monasteries and churches in the US don't even come close to the average annual number/facility of prayers, visions and meditative thoughts experienced at WH.

Bless their profit-seeking souls!

Waffle House at a Glance
A look at the Waffle House restaurant chain, by the numbers:

— Number of Waffle Houses: 1,497
— States with Waffle House restaurants: 25
— Eggs served by Waffle House in a year: 185 million
— Estimated total waffles served since 1955: 442,451,500
— Pounds of pecans that go into Waffle House waffles each year: 334,000
— Pounds of grits served by Waffle House each year: 3.2 million
— T-bone steaks served by Waffle House in a day: About 10,000
— Cups of coffee served each year by Waffle House: 95 million

In Waffle House lingo, how the restaurant’s trademark hash browns are served, in any combination:
— "Scattered," Scattered on the grill while cooked.
— "Smothered," Smothered with onions.
— "Covered," Covered with melted cheese.
— "Chunked," Chunks of hickory smoked ham are added.
— "Topped," Topped with chili.
— "Diced," Fresh diced tomatoes are thrown in.
Source: Waffle House

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Who Is John Wesley for Us Today?

Who is John Wesley for us today? Dietrich Bonhoeffer took on a far more difficult question when he asked, "Who is Jesus for us today?", and answered, "(Jesus is) the man for others".

When I look at Wesley's sermons and ministry, they suggest an outline and a trajectory. We might answer, "John Wesley is a person of radical, Christ-centered orthodoxy of faith and practice in a missional, generous spirit." You'll see below that that characterization is not my own, but I'll endorse it! We can speculate on living examples of this type of person in our own day.

In his Standard Sermon #7 The Way of the Kingdom, he remarks, "(T)his faith....is not a bare assent to the truth of the Bible, of the articles of our creed, or of all that is conained in the Old and New Testaments. The devils believe this...yet they are devils still. But it is, over and above this, a sure trust in the mercy of God through Christ Jesus..."

Radically pardoned by and reconciled to God by the suffering of Christ, the orthodox believer is also a person of radical commitment to mercy and reconciliation, a servant of God's social righteousness and a seeker of personal holiness. In The Marks of the New Birth, Wesley also says, "The necessary fruit of this love of God is the love of our neighbor, of every soul which God hath made; not excepting our enemies....We love every (one)...as we love our own souls," just as Christ has loved us. Here is Wesley's informed, reflective and heart-felt orthodoxy, but there is more to his faith than that!

We know from Wesley's writings and from his life's work that he was also a person who yearned for the experience of the New Testament church, for a new Pentecost among Christians and their communities of faith (among his favorite texts were passages in Acts 2 and 4 on the life of the Christian church in Jerusalem--after their experience of the Pentecost). He was a disciple and preacher for whom prayer, study of Scripture, fasting, Christian conversation, spiritual guidance to others were daily disciplines. He was a model of unfailing care for the poor and their conditions, as well as an advocate for various public reforms; e.g. he opposed Britain's slave trade, was for children's education, favored economic opportunity for all, advocated healthy working conditions, supported workers' cooperatives, etc. He was also a critic of, reluctant about, and counseled avoidance of, violence or war.

So, today, if I were looking for persons who both embody the evangelical orthodoxy of John Wesley and his energetic pursuit of the kingdom of global, social holiness, I would probably identify him with public preachers like Jim Wallis of the Sojourners community, or Brian McClaren, also affiliated with Sojourners and Call to Renewal. In fact, McLaren has probably best captured Wesley's approach with a recent book title for a collection of his essays, "A Generous Orthodoxy". The theology is orthodox yet diverse, and the social, global stance is "generous" in that it is radical, just, environmentally alert, and compassionate. You might want to get better acquainted with Jim Wallis or Brian McLaren by using a search engine to look at their teaching and social/justice ministries for Sojourners and Call to Renewal.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Listening to All

When a decision affects everyone, everyone ought to have something to say in that decision. That is the wisdom of the Rule of Benedict. It seems simple enough, but how often do we see it honored? In my church leadership circles, we were taught a few years ago to ask ourselves, "Who are the 'stakeholders'?" and then to inquire and consult with these persons. It seems simple enough, but how often have we all been, or seen, leaders who try to forge ahead and be the deciders on significant matters without sound conferencing among all who are affected? The reading in the Rule today reminds me of the old story about the tribal leader who was asked how he got his people to do what he wanted them to do, and he said, "I let them do what they want to do; otherwise. they would not follow me." I think that is a loose expression of the wisdom in the reading today: "Let the sisters and brothers give their advice." Then choose the path of the common good.


Chapter 3: On Calling the Brethren for Counsel
Whenever any important business has to be done
in the monastery,
let the Abbot call together the whole community
and state the matter to be acted upon.
Then, having heard the brethren's advice,
let him turn the matter over in his own mind
and do what he shall judge to be most expedient.
The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel
is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.

Let the brethren give their advice
with all the deference required by humility,
and not presume stubbornly to defend their opinions;
but let the decision rather depend on the Abbot's judgment,
and all submit to whatever he shall decide for their welfare.

However, just as it is proper
for the disciples to obey their master,
so also it is his function
to dispose all things with prudence and justice.

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Care and Feeding of Others

In nearly every Christian's life, responsibility for others' well-being is more or less a given. Sometimes we don't much care for this. As romantic as "doing all the good we can for others" seems to us in the abstract, the concrete reality is that doing good takes time, effort, inconvenience, and sometimes it involves various forms of suffering. To complete "works of mercy"--whether spiritual care, or physical assistance, or the pursuit of justice in the world--this is work. More than that, it requires of us a sense of responsibility and love for others which it might be more convenient to avoid. With responsibility comes anxiety--thoughtful planning, careful attention to detail, uncertainty of outcomes, and even the acquisition of opponents. Still, we serve, because this is what God asks of us. I think that Pope John XXIII, a conscientious leader, was said to pray something like this to God at night, "I have done the best I could with your church today; now, while I sleep, it is your responsibility to care for it until morning." We do what we can, as well as we can, hoping we will not contradict our ministries by our faults or failings. The rest we entrust to God.

Today's reading from the "Rule of Benedict" follows:

Thus the constant apprehension
about (the leader's) coming examination as shepherd (Ezech. 34)
concerning the sheep entrusted to her,
and her anxiety over the account that must be given for others,
make her careful of her own record.
And while by her admonitions she is helping others to amend,
she herself is cleansed of her faults.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Walking to Gulfport, Mississippi

This spring, March 23-30, 2007, we will be "walking" to Gulfport, Mississippi to assist with the on-going clean-up and repairs which have followed Hurricane Katrina. Remember that Hurricane Katrina occurred at the end of August 2005. Katrina was one of the worst storms ever to hit the U.S. with damages far exceeding $100 billion--and hundreds of people killed, primarily by flooding. Today, over one-and-a-half years later, the recovery effort still continues.

Our mission team, which will probably be between 35 to 50 volunteers, will spend a week working in the hardest hit area of Mississippi. More people were killed in the county where we will serve than in any other county in Mississippi. We are going, as other volunteer teams have before us, because we want to help the people of Mississippi to return to the normalcy, hope and security which all human beings need in order to live fulfilling lives.

One of the repeated Scriptural promises from God in the Old Testament is this: "I will restore their fortunes..." That promise recurs many times in the Psalms, and in the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who were intimately involved with people who were exiled from their lands, and who sought to be restored to their homes. We hope our efforts may be a small part of that promise of restoration for our sisters and brothers in Mississippi.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Wildness for the Forgiven

from Henry David Thoreau's Journal, January 12, 1855
"Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for wildness..."

Thoreau's entry today is a paraphrase of Psalm 103:2-3. There the Psalmist praises God, not for wildness but for forgiveness: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all (God's) benefits, who forgives all your iniquity..."

Today, as I walk, I will be reflecting on God's converging graces which commend forgiveness to the Wild and wildness to the Forgiven! Reinhold Niebuhr, I think, used to say that his task in ministry was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. There is a little of that here. Let those of us who abide in calm pools today seek out wilder waters of service and justice tomorrow, and let those who are in the rapids today know that they will be led to still waters, later or sooner.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Vibrant United Methodist Churches

This week I led three sessions of Bible study at the Convocation for United Methodist pastors at a conference center near Brainerd. The keynote speaker was Diana Butler Bass, a popular Christian author and religious historian, who has been studying mainline Christian churches (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, and so on), and she has discovered a new trend among a growing number of mainstream congregations: vibrant and growing churches! While for decades trend-watchers and religious sociologists have reported "the decline" of mainline churches, and rapid growth among some evangelical churches, Butler Bass is finding that the trend seems to be changing.

What has happened? First, many persons are newly appreciating mainstream churches for their risky past contributions to the developments in civil rights and justice which have formed our present reality. Methodists and others have been for much of the past century religious leaders at the forefront of resistance to slavery, advocacy for women's rights and leadership, protections for laboring men and women, protections for children, support for civil rights, and resistance to entry into war.

In addition to this history of costly leadership, which other denominations only came to later, the United Methodists and others are today respected and gaining new vibrancy for the following reasons, Butler Bass says.

1. Vibrant, growing mainstream churches encourage Biblical and theological reflection. To quote one of those she interviewed for her studies, "They don't ask you to leave your brain in the parking lot!"

2. United Methodists and other mainstream churches show new vibrancy and growth are learning to show active, generous, outreaching care and hospitality. They "welcome strangers", whether these are persons of color, homeless, immigrants, children, etc.

3. In a related vein, the third most common attribute of these vital churches is that they develop and intentionally encourage diverse communities.

To sum it up, mainstream churches from "center moderate" or 50/50 between conservative and liberal Christians, to more liberal ones, are taking the Scriptures seriously and responding to the neighbors around them with unusual compassion, care and generosity. This has frequently meant that these churches have a commitment to address the hard moral issues of society church and society, though they may often need to respectfully agree to disagree on "deal-breaker", controversial issues.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Longing for Water

Today, I am at a retreat near Brainerd. Out my window, I can see Gull Lake. Only this lake is not now rippling water, sparking and shimmering with sunlight and the effects of some breeze or wind. It is a large greyish-blue, snow-swept, prairie of ice. There is nothing wrong with ice, but when I come to a "summer resort", I find myself thinking of beach-time and beautiful, playful water--and wishing the Minnesota leaders of Methodism had more regard for the best times to "retreat" in northern Minnesota! So my whole take on the lection for the day is changed by an awareness of so much ice substituting for living waters.

The text (Psalm 42:1-11) says: "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?"

Reflecting on this annoyance with the ice, I see that I am longing for flowing waters, both literally and figuratively. I am thirsting for something that ice cannot give; I want a certain beauty and a taste which water alone provides. I also want a certain beauty and taste which God alone provides in my life. I have become a connoisseur of waters! Only the finest will do! Only God. Only God will do for my journey, for my steps, for my thirst.

Monday, January 8, 2007

Content with Our Course

Thoreau's Journal--January 6, 1857
A man asked me the other night whether such and such persons were not as happy as anybody, being conscious, as I perceived, of such unhappiness himself and not aspiring to much more than an animal content. “Why!” said I, speaking to his condition, “the stones are happy. Concord River is happy, and I am happy too. When I took up a fragment of a walnut-shell this morning, I saw by its very grain and composition, the form and color, etc., that it was made for happiness. The most brutish and inanimate objects that are made suggest an everlasting and thorough satisfaction; they are the homes of content. Wood, earth, mould, etc., exist for joy. Do you think that Concord River would have continued to flow these millions of years by Clamshell Hill and round Hunt’s Island, if it had not been happy,—if it had been miserable in its channel, tired of existence, and cursing its maker and the hour that it sprang?”

Thoreau held that human beings were created to be as happy and content as all the rest of nature--if we would only follow our own nature! We too often mistake who we are. Our desires, impulses and ambitions send us off on so many "rabbit chases", seeking one identity or another which will be approved by those who see us. We too often define ourselves by social perception, rather than by the nature which is our self. What a gift to look at a walnut shell and see its true and only grain and patterns. What a gift to watch a river find its course without error or disappointment. We don't say of a river or a tree, "Oh, if only it had done this or that, things would have turned out so much better!" Maybe we should allow ourselves and our neighbors some of the same openness simply to be and to become without barriers or expectations.
We might say to ourselves, "Oh, so this is who I am today, as I walk, as I listen, as I work." I am a river, a wood, a walnut shell.... I am a child of God: "Do not be anxious about your life...Strive first for the kingdom of God..." (Matthew 5:25 and 33).

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Popcorn for the Soul

An entry from Henry David Thoreau's Journals--January 1852, I think. This comes from a remarkable daily blog of Thoreaus' journal entries on the internet. I am reading them with great appreciation, as you could!

"I have been popping corn tonight, which is only a more rapid blossoming of the seed under a greater than July heat. The popped corn is a perfect winter flower, hinting of anemones and houstonias. For this little grace man has, mixed in with the vulgarness of his repast, he may well thank his stars."

Our family loves popcorn. My wife, Mary Lynn, is a fanatic, so I know she will love Thoreau deeply for this single entry in all his works! I am not sure that I have ever read a more detailed and appreciative description of popcorn than this one by Henry David Thoreau! He calls popcorn a "perfect winter flower" and a "little grace". There a couple of kernels I want to claim from this entry of his. First, instead of just grabbing fistfuls of food, I want to learn to notice it, admire it, appreciate it, be grateful for it, praise it and its Creator, and--savor it long before it ever comes near my mouth. Second, while I am learning to live "soul to sole", expressing my God-graced soul by the way I "walk", I don't want to over-do what is simple, beautiful and sufficient without my rushing, cramming, and spreading butter and salt all over it. Why do we always feel such a strong impulse to "improve" the good and sufficient provision from God and nature? Have we come to God's banquet table of the Kingdom primarily to please our taste-buds, or primarily for the strength and the beauty we receive, which the table of God supplies us?

Friday, January 5, 2007

Ordinariness

from Thoreaus' Journal, January 5, 1858
"If meadow-hay is of less worth in the market, it is more interesting to the poet."

Most of the truly valuable portions of life are hidden within ordinariness. A hug, a certain glance, a kind word, a shared silence, a cast of light, a good deed, the scent of trees or soil, the warmth of a blanket, the chill of a wind, a fleeting insight. The gospel is ultimately about God choosing ordinariness as the means to do for us all that matters most: "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate deity". Ordinariness humbly bears divine grace. Your day, your hour, your minute are channels God uses to reach you with what you need, and you are in your turn the plainest of angels to those who need your nurture.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

A Marker on the Plain

from Thoreau's Journals, January 1, 1852

"Now let me read my verses, and I will tell you if the god has had a hand in them. I wish to survey my composition for a moment from the least favorable point of view. I wish to be translated to the future, and look at my work as it were at a structure on the plain, to observe what portions have crumbled under the influence of the elements."


I think Thoreau was literally referring to one of his poems in this entry, but he certainly understood the metaphor, too. We yearn to have what we are composing in this moment be something which endures toward another horizon in time, and which proves worthy of a future moment and horizon. This is the way one uses a compass and completes a course: You set the direction and select a marker near your visual horizon, then you walk. When you come to the old marker, you set your course again for another marker, and you walk again. We all hope that our "works" and our values are set as markers on the way. Again, we hope they will last another year, another decade, another century--if not as eternal art, then as least as trail-blazings. Will others find the trail or path we have taken such efforts to create or follow?