America, The people of God and the celebration of Christ

I recently received this e-mail forward and thought I'd share my thoughts, as well as a piece in response from urbanlegend.com

E-mail:

Hello all,

Thought you might be interested in this information from the White House. This isn't a rumor; this is a fact.

We have a friend at church who is a very talented artist. For several years she, among many others, has painted ornaments to be hung on the various White House Christmas trees. The WH sends out an invitation to send an ornament and informs the artists of the theme for the year.

She got her letter from the WH recently. It said that they would not be called Christmas trees this year. They will be called Holiday trees. And, to please not send any ornaments painted with a religious theme.

She was very upset at this development and sent back a reply telling them that she painted the ornaments for Christmas trees and would not be sending any for display that left Christ out of Christmas.

Just thought you should know what the new residents in the WH plan for the future of America. If you missed his statement that "we do not consider ourselves a Christian Nation" this should confirm that he plans to take us away from our religious foundation as quickly as possible.

Urbanlegend

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/white_house_christmas_ornaments.htm

Analysis: Baseless rumor. Apart from the announcement last August that an 18- to 19-foot Fraser fir from Shepherdstown, West Virginia will serve as the official 2009 White House Christmas Tree, there have been no revelations to date as to First Lady Michelle Obama's plans for decorating the Executive Mansion for the holidays. All speculation in that regard is premature.

Moreover, we have only this one anonymous, secondhand account to support the claim that artists who have contributed White House Christmas ornaments in the past were invited to contribute again this year with the stipulation that submissions be limited to non-religious-themed designs. Its veracity is dubious, if for no other reason than that it does not appear to be the case that the same artists are asked to participate year after year. In 2008, for example, Laura Bush asked each member of Congress to select an artist from their home district; in 2007, each National Park site was asked to designate an artist; in 2006, submissions were restricted to craft artisans; and so on.

White House sources say that as yet no such invitations have been sent out for 2009.

White House Christmas Tree vs. Capitol Christmas Tree

It's possible the rumor was sparked by a controversy surrounding decorative guidelines for a different tree, the Capitol Christmas Tree (aka National Christmas Tree), which is displayed every holiday season on the West Front lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Each year, the federal government selects a different state to supply a 50- to 85-foot-tall National Tree and 75 smaller specimens for distribution around the Capitol, and citizens of that state are invited to contribute handmade ornaments.

Objections were raised this year when it was noted that the program guidelines stipulated that ornaments contributed by citizens "may not reflect religious or political themes." Threatening a first-amendment lawsuit, Christian and conservative groups called on the U.S. Forest Service, which sponsors the program, to rescind the ban. A Forest Service spokesman said the language prohibiting religious themes came from "old information" posted on the Capitol Tree website, an ABC News report says. It has since been revised.

Religious-themed ornaments were banned during the previous administration

In point of fact, online documents show that a ban on religious-themed ornaments was in effect in 2007 and 2008, though no one objected at the time.

My Thoughts:

I don't understand what the problem is if it is true? It seems to me that the more absurd fact is what Christmas has been for so many years. the token celebration of the birth of Jesus has been hoard-out to commercialism and materialism at the worlds worst year after year, which is saying a lot-- approx. $450 billion dollars. To give just a pinch of perspective to that number: conservative estimates say that approx. 3.4 million people die each year from unclean water related diseases; it is also estimated that it would only require approx. $10 billion dollars to make clean water available to everyone in the world. Moreover, it is also a rather widely held understanding that if just all Christians living in the United States tithed 10% it would eradicate poverty.
World issues aside for a moment, what do we see if we step back and ask ourselves how much of the Christmas' past have even just been more about the birth of Christ in word and deed rather than just ideologically vs busyness, materialism, stress and excessive amounts of food? I know that at least in my life the evidence doesn't fall in favor of Christ.
We can even isolate from the world issues how these practices and the attitudes that it brings out in many of us fall against the teachings of Christ on Materialism, selflessness, worry and love?
Moreover, if we couple all of these issues together with the world issues of water-sourced disease, starvation abroad and next door, as well as those without clothing and shelter or toys, how does it seem Christ would have us spend our time and money in remembrance of him? What traditions of remembering Christ are we teaching our kids?

Christmas is Changing? I say thank God. It seems that one of the best things that could happen for the name of Christ so far as Christmas is concerned is to take his name out of the "holiday season" altogether. At least that way maybe his name will quit being sold and raped as a commercialism mockery.

need help deciding how to change your spending habits this holiday season? check out

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

and

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/?msource=kw2689&gclid=CLfR9dn60J0CFc9h2godMA4ErA

... or will I just forget?

Journal entry: approx. July 26, 2007 rural Sukuma territory, Tanzania

At the point that I stopped writing yesterday I decided that I was going to go see if I could do anything for any of these children [I hear crying everyday in the village I am staying in]. I hadn't before out of the order of men, women and children here; because I am a guest that doesn't speak their language and because children of such a young age here are known to be frightened to hysteria by our strange white skin. None the less, this time I decided to try.
I didn't find anyone outside [the huts] except a very small naked baby girl sitting in the dirt, with flies eating at her running snot (accumulated from her recent crying?) which was now collecting sand, her vagina already being covered in sand and dirt.
I went and sat beside her, bashfully giving her my thumb to hold onto which she, even more bashfully, took.
All I could think to do is tell her that God loves her and ask that somehow God might show his love for this girl through me in that moment and ask that she be healed. I repeated this over and over again (though I got a sick, steadily deepening self righteous feeling that she, as well as her whole family, already knew and would continue to know God and his love in a more present, day-to-day power and reality than I might ever).
Then I began to tell her that I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I loved her also without feeling as though I had just told a bold faced lie, one I was just realizing I had been telling myself for years [to shake about some warm, lively feelings of selflessness when feeling empty and cold]. I had nothing to give evidence to my love, no inconvenience from me; no pushing through a difficulty for her sake. So I apologized, for myself and all of us. I apologized that we have abused, raped and reduced and made in our image a "the love of Christ," to checks in the mail and "deep conversation", spiritual masturbatory feelings of meaningful life and even a little martyrdom. We have raped and deformed her identity to checks and deep, emotive and philosophical conversations, essays, poems and music videos, and so used her for our own invigorating feelings of self-sacrifice that might last for quite some time; all the while she is sitting naked in the dirt. It is these good feelings of selflessness that we buy with our checks and accomplish with our heated conversation, for they rarely ever move far enough from that starting point to make her feel loved selflessly. I am so very sorry that we have used her in this long running cycle, replacing her for our "conviction." I apologized that at the rate we tend to go with loving the power, control and orderly ways, she might never get a chance to know the love of Christ in a white person. Although, many of us Christians might never know it at all the way she does or will.
And if this is read, my fear is that, if it does move anyone in any way, it will become another link in the cycle. That those good feelings of conviction and that tingling to "help" will only produce more checks and "good conversation," perhaps even prolonging her life, but not to the reality of Christ in her's which is missing in ours.
...

April 1, 2008: Abilene Texas, USA

Stories are what they want, just a simple "good" will do. Nothing else please, or you might break my stride, effect my time or even wake-up my mind. But don't worry because I can't even speak your nothing more nothing less, I tried just saying "bad" but it tasted like blood in my mouth and about knocked you on the ground for not being the answer you already "knew" for yourself. I can't speak knowing the places I have driven through, everyday life I'd see through the windowed AC. I can't think because for twenty years these things I'd see were through the safety of a screen, where people watch together and everyone would sit and think, passionately speak or maybe even weep, and now I pasted pasted pasted them on the street. The empty swell of the babies belly and the beginnings of infection in that place for a leg where there is none-- treated a little sooner and she probably would have seen years to come. But she never had a chance because she's as noticed as a suit on wall street. should have stayed on the screen. But I had to come and ignore you to your face. I've come a long way, hours in the airports to get to this place to know name and face, real relationship, be changed, and a simple way. But you've made the mistake getting in my space, asking for help and slowing my pace. I'm just here to watch, "hands off. they will help you. get a job." If I help you, allow myself to reach out and feel you, I'll have to help him too, or at least pick and choose, else I'm liable to become just like you. It's more practical to write about you somewhere down the road from the safe activism of my Fair Trade brew.
I can't speak of the times and words I could speak, bargaining on the street, good thing I learned some Swahili. I can't give you money, though it wouldn't be enough anyway. If I had time and we could speak I'd sit with you in the street; as is, I'm off to Europe, have a nice day.
You want to hear stories of my "great adventures?"Sorry, I couldn't see because my eyes were adjusted to sort of pain on T.V. When in Africa, do as the Africans do: Survive. Don't be affected, this is everyday life. Do as the missionaries do: tough love; a turned eye and resenting sigh. Get out of my mind! I didn't pay to live with your cries, I just wanted to tell stories of the days I stayed in your sty. Could you please stop for a moment, it's hard to get a convincing picture of your loathsome plight when your always laughing. know the time and place.
How was my trip? How was my trip? How was my trip? How was my trip? I don't have an answer for you. I can't speak because I didn't speak (who was I to speak?). Now who am I to speak? Numb, frustrated gap of life. On autopilot. Sleep walking, trying to make my dreams like I think they should be. Now I just live with this nagging feeling of incomplete. Learn to be okay with not being okay. Okay with not being okay with what I was okay with. I understand what your trying to do but it's not catchy enough.
I need to go on with my life now, please let go of my hand, I have plans to be with these people so let me leave. Take your hands off, I need to roll up the window.
How was your trip?
Not okay. African is a whore for social service. A tax deduction, a stamp in the passport, a story for the blog.
----------------------------------

Present day:

For this reason I've wrestled for years with sharing this story at all, not knowing how to get around and cut deeper than just being another "inspiring" story, with all the ways we abuse that word as well, from which we throw up our hands in helplessness or to some half baked effort to do something, anything, just long enough to make these feelings of guilt wear off and settle back into our groove and forget that the effort ever stopped.
This experience, her face, has been sitting inside me, a wrenching ache in my soul. She is the crying inside my head, the mirror I never wanted to look at and always saw. I felt this excruciating tear in feeling that she was just serving as something for me to be continuously convicted about and letting myself forget her and moving on to any degree of a well adjusted life in America. No matter what I do I am doing exactly what I didn't want to let happen. I don't want to forget her and move on. I don't want to settle back into American life-- as long as I'm living in America I've realized I can't help being some degree of who I never wanted to be again. I am afraid of not being changed enough by her face, by her cries. I am afraid of using her to make myself and others fool ourselves into thinking we don't forget about the pain of the world around us every day, while we go about ours so comfortably that it is over before we know it. The structuring of the societies of man allow us, "nurture" us to think it "nature", to live in two different worlds and right next door, this fact alone has to be one of the first things to go in the kingdom of God.
Yes, I know I've changed, but what bothers me is how much I haven't changed, how closely similar the person I am now, together with my worries and decision making, is to who I was before.
None the less, these past couple years I have done just that, I have adjusted relatively comfortably to living in America again and taken as automatic some ways of life and thinking, becoming some degree of who I never wanted to be again. At times I think I have gone weeks without thinking about her, seeing her face, hearing her cries and laughter that is fourth dimensional to life as I know it.
I write the story now because I need to get this wrenching inner wrestling off my chest somehow. I write knowing that all of these things I fear are inevitable because the societies of man are the way they are and we are broken bastard children of the societies that raised us, who make for broken neighbors. But we disciples of Christ have been adopted by God and are being transformed by grace and love to an entirely new way. I hope that this story, she, can be another face in the millions that we have encountered that make it harder and harder to forget that they are our living, breathing, dying, laughing neighbors. I pray that I, we, will never stop lamenting what is not yet of the breaking in kingdom of God, in our hearts, minds, lives, homes, religious congregations, neighborhoods, communities. That no matter how uncomfortable it will get at times, we don't forget that we strive to be transformed to the society of God and not back to that of man which says her pain and our comfort is just the way things are.

This may of seemed all over the place and repetitive at times because that is the way it has happened in me, more or less.

"To be deeply bothered is a sign of hope... We are not in control of reconciliation. Too often christians are driven by activism that by trying harder and doing more our communities can become all they should be. We have to keep proclaiming [lamenting] what is not, even what is not in our own midst. Even if things never really change. This keeps calling us to hope in God, to humility, to resist certainty, self-congratulation, and the pride which so easily besets self proclaimed 'radical disciples'" - Chris Rice
-----------------------


There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way
We do it everyday
Preachers on the podium speakin' of saints
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin' for change
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape,
cursing my name
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing
You can spend you whole life working for something
Just to have it taken away
People walk around pushing back their debts
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets
Talking 'bout nothing, not thinking 'bout death
Every little heartbeat, every little breath
People walk a tight rope on a razors edge
Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence

There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I don't know why I say the things I say
But I say them anyway
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free, yes

Prison walls still standing tall
Some things never change at all
Keep on building prisons, gonna fill them all
Keep building bombs, gonna drop them all
Working your fingers bare to the bone
Breaking your back make you sell your soul
Like a lung that's filled with coal
Suffocating slow
The wind blows wild and I may move
The politicians lie and I am not fooled
You don't need no reason or a three piece suit
To argue the truth
The air on my skin and the world under my toes
Slavery stitched into the fabric of my clothes
Chaos and commotion wherever I go
Love I try to follow

Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free, yes

There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way
We do it everyday



people love you the most for the things you hate.
and hate you for loving the things you can't keep straight.
people judge you on a curve
and tell you you're getting what you deserve
and this too shall be made right.

children cannot learn, when children cannot eat
stack them like lumber when children cannot sleep
children dream of wishing wells,
who's waters quench all the fires of hell
and this too shall be made right.

the earth and the sky and the sea are all holding their breath
wars and abuses have nature growing with death
you say we're just trying to stay alive
it looks so much more like a way to die.
and this too shall be made right.

yes theres a time for peace, there is a time for war
theres a time to forgive and a time to settle the score
a time for babies to lose their lives
a time for hunger and genocide.
and this too shall be made right.

oh i dont know the sufferings of people outside my front door.
and i join the oppressors of those i choose to ignore.
im trading comfort for human life
and that's not just murder, it's suicide.
and this too shall be made right.
oh this too shall be made right.

celebrate characters

A project by NY TIMES-- New York Characters in Sound and Images--
A celebration of people in their "normalcy" as beautiful individuals with stories worth telling and worth stopping to listen and see; as One in 8 million.

does my heart good, not only to receive these stories, but that this project was even put together. check it out, you'll love.

thanks to this guy for bringing it to my attention.

Always We Begin Again

The Benedictine Way of Living--

...
The First rule is simply this:

live this life
and do whatever is done,
in a spirit of Thanksgiving.

Abandoned attempts to achieve security,
they are futile,

give up the search for wealth,
it is demeaning,

quit the search for salvation,
it is selfish,

and come to comfortable rest
in the certainty that those who
participate in this life
with an attitude of Thanksgiving
will receive its full promise.

I read it again. again. daily again. I effort to read these words into my life, read this spirit into my spirit. read the state of being and world view into this (my?) state of being and world view. Daily the words find new relevance to my existence. "Always we begin again" is itself a daily contemplative effort toward a foreign reality; to "always begin again" makes no sense in the context of the society that has raised me and instilled in me its ways. Intellectually feasible but lacking lacking experiential reference to build meaning for reality. It is a reality which in contemplative discipline, neither lacks a disarming hope, nor blunt challenging of present existence.

Oh God,
Get Egypt out of us.
Take us out of Egypt if you must to do this, as you did with your people before us.

Let our prayer not be for a better world
but for the breaking in of a new world and the transforming of our minds from the old to new--
your Kingdom come
your will be done
on Earth
As it is in Heaven.

(The rule is from St. Benedict's Rule, restated for today's reader by attorney John McQuiston, titled Always We Begin Again. This is only the first rule.
these rules, particularly as stated in this little book simply because it is easier to understand its relevance, has been invaluable to me and many of my close friends and their close friends in our pursuit of daily living a peaceful, full, contemplative life in relationship with God and all of creation.)

...
The First rule is simply this:

live this life
and do whatever is done,
in a spirit of Thanksgiving.

Abandoned attempts to achieve security,
they are futile,

give up the search for wealth,
it is demeaning,

quit the search for salvation,
it is selfish,

and come to comfortable rest
in the certainty that those who
participate in this life
with an attitude of Thanksgiving
will receive its full promise.

who's telling our story?

An excerpt from New Monasticism by Johnathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I made bold a few parts that really hit me.

Teaching in our local church and talking to pastors and friends in other churches, I've been convinced that you can learn what a church really believes by asking what it teaches its children. This is why God said to Israel, 'Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise' (Deut. 6:6-7). Deuteronomy says that the way we really believe a story as a people is by talking about it at home and on our way to other places, when we get up and when we go to bed. If that is true, then I think it's fair to say that the TV tells us our story more than the Bible. With a TV in the Living room, the bedroom, and increasingly in the car, kids hear the stories that advertisers sell them when they sit at home and when they're on the road, when they lie down and when they get up. Of course we often acknowledge that this can be bad for children, and parents limit TV time. But if Deuteronomy is right, this is bad for all of us. God's law is not on our hearts when we're not impressing it on our children. (Incidentally, I think this is true whether you have biological kids or not; if we're a people, they're all our kids.) It seems that we don't tell the story of God's faithfulness enough to convince ourselves or our Children that it's true.

On this topic he referenced an encouraging movement in Christian education called Godly Play ("an imaginative method for presenting scripture and stories to children"). check it out.

Flag(s) in the Assembly: An Uncertain Proposal (from Brad East's blog Resident Theology)

Flag(s) in the Assembly: An Uncertain Proposal (from Brad East's blog Resident Theology)

I take it as axiomatic that a church should not display a national flag in or around the physical premises of the church building, much less in the assembly or sanctuary. That this is not self-evident is in itself a problem, of course, but for those churches that do see the discrepancy but struggle to find a satisfying solution or do not feel threatened by the American or other flags' visible presence (usually out of a thoughtful gratitude, rather than a frothing patriotism), I wonder if there are any faithful options. This especially came into sharp focus recently after a story I heard secondhand about a church, contrary to regular practice, displaying the American flag for Memorial Day.

The reasons are manifold for maintaining an absence of the flag, but the danger is uniquely potent for American Christians, for two reasons: First, since its inception America has been inextricably linked conceptually, metaphorically, religiously, and militarily with the (Protestant) Christian church. America has been proclaimed a new Israel, a city on a hill, the hope of the nations, the triumph of man, the promised new world, etc. These are frighteningly blunt in their appropriation of eschatological images of the church in the New Testament. Thus the claim that "America is a Christian nation" or, as straightforwardly as possible, "Christian America." This is -- and it ought not need to be said at all -- idolatry, plain and simple. The church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. America is none of these things. Even if every single individual that made up the nation called America happened to be, by birth or by choice, Christian -- like other European nations of the past, I might add -- nothing would thereby be changed. America is not and cannot be the church, and therefore is not and cannot "be," without qualification, "Christian."

Second, America is not merely one among many nations, nor merely a nation "with the soul of a church" or one happening to contain many self-professed Christians; America is, in a profound sense in our time,the nation. It is the preeminent world leader in military power, economic strength, and political muscle. When America throws its weight around, people amen, cower, rebel, submit, flee, or at the very least flinch. There are no bystanders in the time of America; one is not neutral toward it. It is in the business of picking sides and asking others to do the same. That is simply what it means to be "the best" in those areas the world deems important.

And so, as any American knows, what comes along with being (or claiming to be, or acting like) "the best" is a resilient, remarkable, fervent pride. Americans love America, love being American, love that America is what it is. And with that comes a kind of devotion which, accordingly, involves the American flag. The flag is the symbol of the nation: its history, its virtue, its standing, its future. And because the nation demands allegiance, Americans pledge allegiance to that flag as the one thing uniting them all together.

It is easy to see, then, regardless of how one feels about Christians actually pledging allegiance (we'll leave that for another day), why the presence of the flag in assembled Christian worship would be problematic. Here is a visual representation of National, Economic, Political, Military Power that expects, solicits, and even demands Pride, Devotion, and Allegiance. There are four visual possibilities for the flag in worship, all equally detrimental in their role:

1) above the cross, in which the cross of Christ lies symbolically in subordinate service to the flag;

2) on level with the cross, in which the two are linked visually as mirror and equal representations of the same divine reality;

3) below the cross, in which the flag exists ontologically in service to the cross; and

4) in place of the cross, in which the cross of Christ has disappeared altogether and the flag has replaced it as the symbol of the faith.

Obviously, every one of these possibilities is disastrous. The cross represents to us the absolute call of Jesus to each of us individually and to us together as a community to follow after him, to commit ourselves utterly to him in allegiance above and in replacement of all other allegiances, to renounce all former claims in order to become citizens of the kingdom of God. The flag, by any pairing imaginable, enters into this call not as a rival claimant but as a complimentary fellow, one more icon in the visible reverie of the faith. The God of Israel, however, is a jealous God, and he will not stand to have a rival god in his presence, and thus not in the gathered worship of his people.

I hope it is clear, therefore, why it is utterly inappropriate for the American flag to be displayed in, on, above, around, or by means of any other coterminous preposition vis-a-vis physical church grounds. Before moving on to my uncertain proposal, though, I should also note an apparent doublesidedness to this brief explanation. On the one hand, this temptation and reality is, in the present day, uniquely American. Being the Biggest and the Best, the most Christian and the most Iconic, we are nearly singular in our patriotically syncretistic temptations. On the other hand, however, there is nothing "less wrong" with, say, a village church in Uganda or an apartment church in Russia displaying their respective flags. Nationalism is a sly devil; rabid revolutions and demographic violence do not demand international influence for participation. And the call to discipleship with its subsequent expectations do not waver according to nation.

Now, with all of that said, what of possible "faithful options" of which I hinted above? This is merely a thought, and probably a bad one, but I share it in hope for feedback and contemplation.

What if, in a church accustomed to display of the American flag, instead of fighting the battle to remove the flag completely -- which, while acommendable fight, too often rightly earns that coercive description by the tactics and attitudes employed -- other nations' flags were added to the display? And not only random flags -- of equal size and shape as America's! -- but chosen specifically for that specific church in that time and place, in visual subordination and subservience to the cross. (If there is no cross, of course the whole project falls apart.)

For example: begin with the American flag. Then add the flags of any church members' home nationalities, whether Mexico, Britain, or Australia. Next add the flags of all the international missions locations that church is involved in, say, of Uganda, Honduras, and Croatia. Finally, take the flags of the half a dozen or so most prominent, most talked about, most reviled, most foreign enemies of America (from the past, present, and foreseeable future), and display those too -- say, those of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, China, Russia, Venezuela, and Sudan. And order them chronologically, randomly, or even by "greatest enemy," beginning in the center and moving outward.

So displayed might be, in some order, the flags of Australia, Britain, China, Croatia, Cuba, Honduras, Iran, Mexico, North Korean, Russia, Sudan, USA, Uganda, and Venezuela. Fourteen nations, from around the world, ordered arbitrarily, some home to members of the church, some home to fellow members of a missionary church connected to this one, and some explicit enemies of the nation in which this church resides.

What might this convey to the people of the church?

What if it meant that Jesus, the one to whom the cross points, is Lord of and over each and every one of these nations, fully and equally? What if it meant that the great commission applies to each and every one of these nations? What if it meant that God is already present by his Spiritin each and every one of these nations? That Jesus died for each and every one? That God loves each and every one? That each is on equal footing before God; that each belongs to the broad sweep of history that is God's created world; that each is mere withered grass before the Word of God; that each is allowed no ultimate claims of allegiance before the one true God? That any person of any tribe or tongue is welcome in the assembly of this gathering of God's people? That when we pray, we not only pray a blessing for the well-being of the nation in which we find ourselves as exiles; we pray even more fervently for the blessing of ourenemies, whether of the church or of the nation in which we reside. All are one before the Lord our God, for God is not the God of Jews alone, but of Gentiles also. And we pray Maranatha! Come Lord! We pray that God's kingdom would come on the earth -- for we know that it has not come in full, not in any nation or place, but we await it in its fullness in all times and in all places and in all languages: for the coming of the Lord; for the New Jerusalem; for the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Juxtapoz magazine - Reader art of the day

I learned from my old friend Amy Hardin's blog The Fluttering, That Juxtapoz magazine posts daily a new "Reader art" piece selected from those their readers have sent in. If you have any interest in art, namely relatively undiscovered art (if you don't maybe you should), go read Amy's post and then check out the art.

Artist of the day yesterday:

TITLE: Goldfish
ARTIST: Dominic Bugatto

"That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you..." - Jesus' prayer

"That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you..." - Jesus' prayer John 17

"For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father." Ephesians 2:14-18

I have had the opportunity to be in many, many conversations about community (what is, value of, development, enrichment, etc) the past few months. A reoccurring sort of conclusion many of these came to is that community ought to be allowed to happen organically, via commonality (interests, values, proximity, age, etc). I think the idea of organic community is a very valuable one; to not force while still not taking for granted what we have and so as to not nurture it properly.
However, I feel whole heartedly convicted that I have too often stopped our conversation and visions for "creating" community at our own terms and limits of man; at this world's social norms and practicalities rather than faith in the God who can do anything and what I know to be his desires. I have forgotten the truth and power of the Kingdom of God. It seems to me, the kingdom--the nation-- of God is nothing if not a breaking of barriers; it is the resurrected life in which all the norms, all the barriers, all of the "us, them" mentalities are overcome and washed away by the all saving blood of Christ. There is no rich or poor, white or black, republican or democrat, American or Iraqi, Christian or Muslim, Terrorist or soldier.

In the confines of the ways of this world, this is speaking idealistically. However, I am speaking in terms of the reality of the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. Set apart (sanctified) through Christ, as His disciples we are living resurrected lives now; this is our reality. We have died to the old nature and way of thinking we grew up in, which taught us all its ways and defined life and it's limits for us. "We should not expect the call to be Jesus' disciple to be anything less than a painful intrusion into what comes naturally to us." We are being raised to a transforming and renew of our minds. Our nation, our life sustenance is not of this world, rather our daily way of life is freely defined by the desires and will and possibilities of God, who is Truth and Love.
We must believe in community as God desires it, we are free to live it out, not being hindered by the lies and boundaries of this world but knowing that He is a God of reconciliation who keeps His promises.
In regards to the divisions of this world and the people of God, Chris Rice put it something like this in a book he co-authored Schools for Conversion: 12 Marks of New Monasticism

To be deeply bothered is a sign of hope... we are not in control of reconciliation. Lament reminds us that we are not God... Too often Christians are driven by an activism that by trying harder and doing more our communities can become all they should be. We have to keep proclaiming what is not, even what is not in our own midst. Even if things never change. This does far more than keep us open to transformation, it keeps calling us to hope in God, to humility, to resist certainty, self congratulation, and the pride which so easily besets self proclaimed "radical disciples." We keep naming the "not yet" of the coming kingdom, keep praying to be interrupted by the unexpected, keep reaching out to the stranger, keep holding our hands out for the gift of new people (or work) the Spirit may bring tomorrow. or not.

We should not expect the call to be Jesus' disciple to be anything less than a painful intrusion into what comes naturally to us. - Brad East

The Heavenly Man

I have been reading a book called Heavenly Man, about/by a leader in the underground house churches in China named Brother Yun. It is making me search my life in a way perhaps no book has. I am humbled and rebuked by the unfamiliarity of his God--my God. The way he knows Him is so distant and foreign to me. I am bursting with excitement to find, to pursue this God, to Know Him in such a way, though I am brought low to see in perspective how I have been starving, thinking I knew what it was to have faith, to rely on Him and to see the ways I have been pursuing other gods. His faith rebukes me, scares me, and Gives me a taste of freedom and Life that I am thirsting to get more of. I want to know the reality of the God he knows but I also see now more than ever I think, how it would mean such a new way of life, I can tell it is freedom beyond what I can imagine but I wonder how possible such a faith, such a relationship, such a reality even is within this society, where it is so easy to be a christian and hard and incredibly hard to be a disciple of Christ.
Still, I want to know God as Brother Yun does; as my life blood and sustainer in all things; as a God present and all powerful in each moment; present in daily abundance, contradicting the limits of this world and over coming its hopeless poverty in any situation. The God who works daily miracles in abundance for His people, no matter the boundaries.
I want to be broken and transformed by Brother Yun's story. I need to pursue This God no matter how much it tears down my life as I know it. I have faith that God will be faithful to his promises of fuller life and abundance in his time as I pursue Him.

I recommend this book to everyone as a testament to the living God in ways most of us in the western world can't imagine. Our eyes have been blinded to His power and the reality of His promises.

abstract reality

I identify with this painting (weeping willow by Monet) right now, or at least, I want to identify with it. its abstract yet vivid reality seems to be more like a real beauty than any I can seem to grasp around me as of late. There is a blending of pain and peace and dark and light in the color; it reminds me simultaneously of weeping brokenness and the lifted weight and calm that follows.
Whatever it is, it's in the family of abstract, like a dream I realize I'm in but which, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get a hold of its reality or wake myself from.
This is how I feel of the way of life that's surrounding me, reality as defined by society at large. I have been realizing how different God's society, His nation, His way of life and economy that comes with it, really is. I am beginning to see with new eyes, with a new heart, the kingdoms of this world in contrast to God's new life and the life that this world says is available just doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like life. It feels like layers between people and real life; like a thick coating. I am seeing the lies that have so proliferated through this world that made us believe certain inevitabilities, certain evils functioning that is because it's "just the way things are." The difference of the two kingdoms (of this world and God's) comes to mind like that of a elaborate fat clown suit vs. the naked skinny man underneath; I feel as though I've been being fed cake and being told this is as nutritious as it gets. The more I have tried to come into the presence of God lately the more vivid the layering and coating over my life, me way of thinking and functioning has become.
I newly realize that God is not just trying to make people better; He is not just trying to change the nations of this world, but rather his nation is an completely different/new way; new way of thinking, new way of functioning and relating and defining. Many of us grasp that jesUSAves isn't entirely a healthy understand, but I am realizing that to be God's people, God's kingdom, is so much more otherly, sanctified (set apart for one thing).
His is a economy set apart from that which we've grown up knowing. He is the king who is creator and sustainer of all things. He gave food to his nation from the sky daily and to teach them who created food and who they could rely on he made whatever was stored for the next day rot. He is the God that feed thousands of people with only a little breed and fish; the God who tells us 'do not worry about your life. I feed and clothe and sustain the birds and grass and you are more valuable to me than they.' He is The God who who raises from the dead and promises to give good gifts and protect those who follow Him. In Him all things are possible and true freedom is found.
How can there be any lack of abundance and all that we need with this God who creates every morsel of food?
The more I try to pursue these realities of who God is in my life the more I see this to completely transform how I view economy and the way society functions, and this is only the tip of the iceberg of all of the scripture pointing toward a whole new politics and new economy of the kingdom of God ('blessed are the poor,' 'the last will be first and the first will be last,' 'give to everyone who asks you,' 'lend to your enemies without expecting anything back,' 'do not repay evil with evil,' etc, etc).
If God is who he says He is...
I want to know God in this way; I want to break through the layers to a life I can't even imagine yet through the lies of this world. I thirst, I ache.

The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build a Home

Mmm... stirring. It really is, so I just wanted to share. Thank you, Slater, For introducing us. Away, I delve and comatose.

relevant similarities

I wrote the Post "the above line... "about the title of this blog around the same time my older brother Brandon wrote the following post on his blog dear autumn--or at least, it was right after I posted mine that I encountered his, half way around the world. He said in greater brevity, and perhaps accuracy, largely what I was getting at, without ever having read mine or us talking about the matter. I thought the timing and context of each of our lives as relevant to the other was certainly a noteworthy example of what we were both saying. Enjoy.

writing (and, i believe, all art) is the translation of experience (broadly defined) from one form into another. in order to write you first have to understand how you understand. then you have to decide how to translate what you understand and what to translate it into. but you must also be aware that whatever you have translated you have done only for yourself, and if anyone else seems to connect with it, it is very lucky. for this reason everything i have ever written has been something I've wanted very badly to read. - Brandon Thompson

involuntary mulling: going back to go forward.

Let it be said and understood in the heaviest sense of these words (while avoiding the often ignorant-outsider-condition of perceiving the weight of words required in attempting to communicate in a moment Life altering experiences which took place over a span of time as exaggerated) that, since last I wrote prose here, I've painfully and peacefully and wrenchingly experienced death and Life beyond me; beyond what I thought I ever wanted, beyond my imagination, and beyond every ounce of self within me. And I am Grateful; although it has broken me and my world and, by the grace of God, transformed me by the renewing of this mind.

Having been at a loss for words for some time now, aside from poetry--abstract, fragmentary and vague-- which, Interestingly enough, I never wrote before, I feel a need to explore a different sort of abstract, fragmentary and vague expression. Mulling over and a laying out of sorts of my translations past and other's expressions I have been a translation of. In short, I mean to post what's on my mind as I am mulling and contemplating, pieces of thought and inspiration in a sort of free-write streamofconscience manner; less inhibited by my fears and criticisms while still being intentional.
I am God gathering the pieces to put something new and old together; a work in progress; a translation being translated, and this is my attempt to translate what's going on inside me.

End The University As We Know It (first post in a series concerning needed creative rethinking ideological structures in our society)

End the University as We Know It - Mark C. Taylor - New York Times

please forgive me

why are things this way?
in all this excess I can't access
to feel
real
on the eve of your twelfth year
which
unbeknownst to we
you've worked half of it for me
to give all I have and can't feel
because it's all you can do
to continue to breathe and feed
your six-month-old beautiful hope
from a drunkards seed

now thinning now crying
now I discontentedly whine
bored with my pillows and walls
the earnings of my success
are a hate crime
rightful by law
so how is that my call?

How many lives make up my aesthetic numb ignorance?
what good is this and that and those
over there and these I can't see
are the wall paper and seat
where I sit and don't know exist
I'll choose what will be
and breathe
in my little reality
the best I can do is drink coffee and wine
while I contemplate my life's woes and tragedies
failing to pinpoint a time when I was sure of anything
or what I am breathing

the malfunctioning AC
has train wrecked my dreaming
and awoken me enough to glimpse
the life you've lived at the expense
of my material cinema sleep
is in that moment more real
than wherever I've been can ever be

and In my understanding I am too ashamed to weep
or ask forgive me
considering the easy justice of suicidal sleep
feeling the weighty judgment of naive privilege
in the moment I think I wouldn't wish this luxury on anyone
and ponder a "vow of poverty"
now this one thing I know
that in your pain-- poetically by my hand--
you and your family
are happier than I will ever be.

now leave me be.