I Am Just Happy To Be Here

I dragged in to Kunming around midnight.  Here's what I journaled...  "Looks like I will be "making retreat."  I came to support several young men and their ordination, but for the next couple of days I was shuffled off to a very cold hotel room across the street from KTV and its six-story tall dancing LED girl out my window.  The first night I slept in my leather coat and knit stocking cap - under the comforter.  Oh man! The window was open all night, and I didn't realize it.  I was so blasted after traveling for a couple of days I didn't even check out the window.

I got to breakfast about five minutes before it closed at 9:30 a.m.  I ate fried eggs with my chopsticks.  Its a talent.  Jack called.  They are really busy and if I can just sit tight at the hotel...  Somehow, I loved being sidelined.  I came just to be with them.  Now I will just BE.  I am now making retreat.  I brought Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle.  I sat down in my cold room (window is shut now), a hot cup of tea, which is quickly cooling, and began going through the mansions.  The basement entrance to the Castle of His Majesty, the first mansion, is nothing but a Grace.  It has to be because it is full of poisonous reptiles.  There Self is g-d.  The second mansion begins with Calling.  Its decision time.  Will we follow the Call?  Calling is a also a grace she says.  I smile a smirk because she sounds just like Calvin.  I wonder what the Driscolites and neo-Calvinists would say to that!

On and on Teresa takes me through her mansions.  I am consumed with my situation - sequestered in China, quietly biding my time, abiding in Christ - and reading Teresa.  I thought about my first trip to China.  I was stuck in a hotel on that trip as well.  But then I was so frustrated.  Then I came to China to build a school for poor minority children.  But I was "trapped!"  I had to wait for others to come get me.  I was not in control.  My entire ministry life was about accomplishment - doing something, reaching out to students, starting a church, preaching, disciple-making.

What a difference six years has made in my life.  It is the tale of two Chinese hotel rooms.

The spiritual life is all about control.  The move from DO to BE takes tremendous energy and focus.  It consumes me.  I realize the best discipleship I can accomplish is to model submission to Christ.  One of my staff caught me in a moment of self-disclosure when in a meeting I mumbled, "Even in my silence no one hears me."  I'll never be asked to lead a seminar on Being.  If I ever am then the appropriate thing to do would be to decline the offer.  There are few seminars on "How I Become Nothing."  (Although I did see once a workshop on 'how to take your church contemplative!')

It is embarrassing to even write about my time sequestered in my cold hotel room with Interior Castle.  It violates something private and secret, like shining a flashlight on salamanders in hole, or lifting a rock and having the beetles freeze up.  But this is the unbidden life and it calls to us, like the still small voice.  And my task is to call others to it.  The life of following Jesus is first about abiding, sitting at his feet, listening.  Everything else follows.  All the news about building ministries, serving, politics, success and enterprise is second.  In the past I did not believe this.  But now I can pretty much sit in any hotel room and "make retreat."

The "fuwuyuan" knocked on the door that afternoon.  I was sitting in the chair with my lukewarm tea, my book, journal and pen, with my coat and hat on, wiping my nose.  She had pity on me and brought me a nice big electric heater.  "Xiexie." They've got heaters! Whadda ya know!  Mother Teresa would have rejected it, but not me!  Heck, I could dry my laundry on it in one hour (I don't take much change of clothing; I always go carry-on to China - this is how pilgrims travel.  Lose the roller bag and be free friend). 

Jack called and the ordination service was on for the next day at ten in the morning.  Soon I was buzzing around people and snapping pictures.  I got the great honor of placing the stoles on each ordinand.  As I did so I said the words, "You have received the yoke of Christ, now receive the mantle of Pastor."  I wish I could have thought about it enough in advance work it up in Chinese.  But I didn't.  Still, I thought my line was a pretty snappy thing to say, even if nobody understood it.

After the big event, the point of my trip, I hung out with a few young ministry folk the next few days.  We ate together in their homes and in restaurants - always in our coats, always.  They are so tired.  Nobody asks them how they are doing, how's their marriage, how's the parenting thing going, what is your relationship with Jesus like.  One man spent three years in jail, another one year and then he escaped.  All have been interrogated and hassled.  They have all this plus an American Evangelical model of ministry that will suck the grace of g-d right out of you.  It shows.  It shows.

I just wanted to be with them.  When I go to China I can't help but think of the time when the Apostle Paul was stoned and dragged outside the city and left for dead (Acts 14:20).  And the text says (NIV) 'But after the disciples had gathered around him, he go up and went back into the city.'  No prayer, no oil, no laying of hands - nothing.  They just gathered around him Luke records.  I just wanted to gather around them, those saints in China.  Somehow our Presence can raise the dead.  I was just happy to be with them.  I was just happy to Be.

I haven't finished Interior Castle.  I have already read the later parts before though.  But I have to get through all the mansions.  But there are so many things to DO, back here, you know what I mean?  Perhaps g-d will send down the gift of a cold hotel room and fried eggs for me.  And I can finish my book.  May all of us just be happy to be here... at the feet of Jesus. 

The Canticles of Christmas and the Spiritual Journey: Awakening, Purgation, Illumination & Union - Part 3

(PREFACE)  There are three classic songs or "Canticles" of Christmas: The Magnificat (Mary's Song), The Benedictus (Zechariah's Song), and The Nunc Dimittus (Simeon's Song).  We usually add a fourth with the Song of the Angels to the shepherds.  Lakeland is walking through these four Canticles this Advent Season.  Go to www.lakelandcommunitychurch.org for more about our resources for celebrating Advent at home.  

Coincidentally, there are four classic stages to the spiritual journey:  1) Awakening 2) Purgation 3) Illumination and 4) Union.  For a nice presentation of these four stages consult M. Robert Mulholland Jr.'s Invitation To A Journey, Formatio IVP, 1993.  

This is the third week of Advent.  We come to Simeon's Song, Nunc Dimittus, found in Luke 2:25-35.  

28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,

29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised.

30 I have seen your salvation, 

31 which you have prepared for all people. 

32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations,

and he is the glory of your people Israel!”

It is difficult to place Simeon's Song (Nunc Dimittus) within the classic four stages of the spiritual life.  Simeon certainly belongs to the later stages, Illumination and/or Union.  But which one is he?  Is he both?  He is supposedly old since he is near the end of life.  In the stages, Union is the last.  I planned to save Union for the Angels (Gloria in Excelsis Deo).  But Simeon shows affinity for Union perhaps more than Illumination - except for one feature:  Simeon seems to be "experiencing" g-d and this is not a part of Union. 

Janet Hagberg and Robert Guliech's The Critical Journey, divide the spiritual stages into six, subdividing Purgation into Discipleship and Productivity, and subdividing Illumination into the Inward Journey (with its famous "Wall") and the Outward Journey.  The Inward Journey is a dark journey, self-indulgent, introspection filled with doubt and questions.  One can get stuck and caged at The Wall within the Inward Journey and never make it out.  The Wall results in no longer attending church, cynicism, or even no longer believing in God.  The way through The Wall is to own up to the fact that your old God is not the real unbidden, unknown and uncontrollable g-d. The inability to make this major repositioning kills the spiritual journey and I believe it also kills one's soul or life.

The Outward Journey then is summed up in one word: Acceptance.  A joy comes from accepting that we do not know the g-d but we are surprisingly overwhelmingly loved by this g-d we cannot control.  Acceptance means a loss of control.  As Richard Rohr puts it 'we jump off our tower we built during our entire productive adult life.'  We must jump into the unknown mystical fog of an uncontrollable g-d.  All our previous convictions and certainties no longer apply.  The Bible looks like a brand new book. Yes, the words on the pages look and sound familiar but now we read them for the first time in the light of a new g-d.  The church is redefined in mystical terms.  But mostly the Outward Journey is about finding and accepting our true self, our true identity.  We no longer "rob" g-d of providing us with our identity by DOING things for g-d and others for OUR benefit, affirmation and self-worth.  Now in Illumination (Outward Journey) we embrace the Subjective "I" - an identity that is only defined in terms of g-d's love for us.  Our old Objective "I" based on information, doctrine, beliefs, dogma and certitudes no longer seems valuable.  Our old beliefs are not "wrong" but rather just outdated and trivial compared to the love of the Lover.

Union however is a different stage than Illumination or the Outward Journey.  Union is a deep settled peace and confidence.  Union is NOT filled with emotions and feelings, as much as we are now engulfed inside of g-d.  We are fully seduced.  We are complete.  We no longer desire to go to heaven because we already in heaven here on earth.  We no longer think about praying because our subconsciousness is submerged in unceasing prayer.  This is why Union doesn't "experience" g-d as though g-d is external from us.  But rather g-d is within us or more accurately, we are within g-d.  In Union Teresa of Avila says we no longer experience the consolations of the Spirit - we cease sensing, and become simply divine (theosis).  In Union we serve others out of our Being, our Identity within g-d. We no longer serve others for personal gain or satisfaction.  Everything we "do" is prayer, and prayer is doing.  Tirelessly serving, Mother Teresa said for the last forty years of her life she did not feel g-d.  The Press thought this meant she did not believe in g-d.  What an absurd Western modern materialist response!  That response is couched entirely within a world of belief-control.  But I think every old monk who heard those words of Mother Teresa smiled wryly and just nodded slowly, Knowing. 

Where is Simeon?  Illumination or Union?  Actually any guess is pure fiction.  I don't know.  This entire spiritual journey overlay on top of the Canticles is just an idea.  But I do like the idea of saving Union for the Angels who sing before the shepherds.  No doubt the Angels are in Union with g-d.  And it is even feeble of me to think of Angels "progressing" toward g-d.  They are g-d's messengers.  They are completely submitted.  The can't progress - and they envy us because we can and cannot progress(1 Peter 2:10).

But don't be surprised someday if you a) hit The Wall, b) feel all alone in your joy of Acceptance, giddy and in love with your Maker, c) finally quietly fall into a deep unknown mystery, a divine BEING or state (instead of "knowing" as we think of it in the West).  Don't be surprised if someday you can joyously say, "Now you can dismiss your servant because I have seen the salvation of all the people of the earth..."  And those are you last words.

The Canticles of Christmas and the Spiritual Journey: Awaken, Purgation, Illumination & Union - Part 2

(PREFACE)  There are three classic songs or "Canticles" of Christmas: The Magnificat (Mary's Song), The Benedictus (Zechariah's Song), and The Nunc Dimittus (Simeon's Song).  We usually add a fourth with the Song of the Angels to the shepherds.  Lakeland is walking through these four Canticles this Advent Season.  Go to www.lakelandcommunitychurch.org for more about our resources for celebrating Advent at home.  

Coincidentally, there are four classic stages to the spiritual journey:  1) Awakening 2) Purgation 3) Illumination and 4) Union.  For a nice presentation of these four stages consult M. Robert Mulholland Jr.'s Invitation To A Journey, Formatio IVP, 1993.  

This is the second week of Advent.  We come to Zechariah's Song, The Benedictus, found in Luke 1:67-79. 

Let's think of the progress of the Canticles this way:  Mary is young and innocent.  She is "the vibrant, enthusiastic awakened beginner."  Mary is obedient and submitted.  So she receives G-d's favor and blessing.  Next comes Zechariah.  He is an old experienced priest.  But Zechariah fails to trust G-d and so he is "purged."  

  

Luke 1:18 - Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."

 Purged?  Yes, "purgation" is the old-fashioned spiritual term for "cleansed" or purification.  Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, should be identified with the middle stage of Purgation.  The angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that because he doubts G-d's plan for his wife Elizabeth and him to have a child in the post-child-bearing days, he is not allowed to speak (and apparently he is deaf as well.)  He isn't allowed to speak or hear until John is born.  

Luke 1:19-20 - The angel said to him, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.  20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time."

While this sounds tragic and severe, purgation requires us to turn away from our sin and sinful habits.  When we move out of Awakening and into Purgation, we move into the life of discipleship.  We find new loves and likes.  We now devour Scripture.  We eat up books, sermons, teachings, lectures on the Christian life.  We get into discussions, debates and outright arguments on just about everything... which translation of the Bible is best, New American Standard or New Revised Standard.  Which local church is the "the purest."  Why the Roman Catholics are wrong and Evangelicals are right.  Why Calvinism is THE system of doctrine.

We gather information.  Our soul drills down deep spiritual roots.  We journal and have a quiet time, a time of surrender each day.  We pray rich petitions.  We sing and worship with abandonment.  We buy Christian music CDs/downloads.  We judge other Christians - who's wrong and who's right.  To sum up, we are discovering what we believe and who we belong to.  We are in love with Jesus and all that Jesus stands for.  We are in love with the Christian life.  In my little world, this is when I spelled g-d "God." I knew all about God.  I fled the world and worldliness.  I was in the world but not of the world. 

In my early days of the Christian life, I went to a meeting nearly every night.  I had a quiet time each day.  I read volumes of books on Apologetics and Doctrine.  I loved it. I became a Calvinist because it was so clear, and made so much sense: We are totally depraved, unable to save ourselves; God is sovereign so he must know everything, so he knew me, he predestined me for salvation.  Since God is so efficient, no one who isn't elect will be saved.  Like science, this doctrine is so very clear.  In Purgation G-d is not a mystery to be pondered, so much as he is a puzzle to be solved. 

In Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich's helpful book, The Critical Journey, they divide Purgation into two distinct stages: a) the Life of Discipleship and b) the Productive Life.  The Productive Life focuses on our doing-ness.  We Do.  We do everything.  We realize G-d loves us, and love G-d back.  So we use our g-d-given talents to perform for our Lord.

In my journey I learned to play guitar.  I led worship.  I studied and taught and preached.  I developed leaders, and wrote up scores of Bible Studies and lessons.  I was useful.  Like Zechariah, I learned how to be "a priest" in the temple of Belief.  Also, everyone thought I was useful and wonderful. 

Zechariah had spent his whole adult life (most likely) learning his craft as priest.  He was probably an expert in the Law (Torah).  Unfortunately he knew too much.  He knew the hopes and dreams of the nation had not come to fulfillment.  He knew the Hebrews had been in slavery for over 600 years.  He'd learned to not expect another Moses.

Perhaps what Zechariah needed was a thunk in the head - a thunk to help him think.  He had eyes but could no longer see, ears but no longer hear.  I think when G-d wants us to have a thunk in the head it isn't always some tragic pain like hip surgery (but I wouldn't rule it out).  No, G-d sends us into silence.

The solitude of inner silence.  This was Zechariah's big thunk.  Hagberg and Guelich call it "The Wall."  It is actually a part of what they call the Inward Stage, which follows the stages of Discipleship and Productivity.  Imagine instantly you are deaf and you can't even speak!  For nine months he is alone with his thoughts and G-d.  The Inward Stage with it's unavoidable Wall is time of unprecedented upheaval.  You might still believe in God, but this new g-d is not like your old familiar God.  If the stage goes well, you get "a new g-d" and learn to accept that you don't know anything about God, but you now truly love the unknown G-d.  Best yet, you know G-d is with you.  At this point you no longer know your direction in life - and it's okay, but you certainly know who is with you.  It is the Lord.  What a rich time of prayer and turmoil this is.  We know that Zechariah comes out of this inner sanctuary humble and submitted to G-d in a new fresh way.

He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John."64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.

  I bet Zechariah never doubted G-d again for the rest of his life.  He was purged clean of doubt.

Do we pray for this kind of purging for ourselves?  Well, do we have a choice?

By the way, if my spelling of the name of God as "g-d" or "G-d" drives you crazy, then you are definitely in the Discipleship Stage!

The Canticles of Christmas and the Spiritual Journey: Awaken, Purgation, Illumination & Union

There are three classic songs or "Canticles" of Christmas: The Magnificat (Mary's Song), The Benedictus (Zechariah's Song), and The Nunc Dimittus (Simeon's Song).  We usually add a fourth with the Song of the Angels to the shepherds.  Lakeland is walking through these four Canticles this Advent Season.  First is Mary's Song, the Magnificat found in Luke 1:46-55 for November 27th.  Go to www.lakelandcommunitychurch.org for more about our resources for celebrating Advent at home.  

Coincidentally, there are four classic stages to the spiritual journey:  1) Awakening 2) Purgation 3) Illumination and 4) Union.  For a nice presentation of these four stages consult M. Robert Mulholland Jr.'s Invitation To A Journey, Formatio IVP, 1993. 

Speaking with musician Chris Lea about the Canticles, I noticed an overlap between the classic four stages of the spiritual life and the four canticles of Christmas.  Curiously, each stage corresponds to each of the Canticles exactly how I arranged to preach them. Go figure.  Each of the four weeks of Advent I will post a new article about each stage in the spiritual journey and its canticle.  Here's the first installment.

Mary's Song, The Magnificat and Awakening

Mary is a young betrothed peasant woman.  The angel Gabriel visits her and tells her she will conceive by the Spirit of g-d and give birth to the world's Savior.  Awakening is always an encounter with the unbidden g-d.  G-d comes at us, unannounced, mostly unwelcomed, strange and threatening.  When we encounter g-d in Awakening we may be blown away - quietly or "violently."

My personal Awakening was a bit of both.  At sixteen years of age, dealing and using drugs, one cold lonely January Monday night I feel to my knees in front of my dresser next to my bed.  I was tired and strung out and all I prayed was "God help me."  I meant it, but didn't expect anything.  But I was desperate.  I thought g-d was far away, unconcerned, unaware and mostly unable to do anything for me.

But in that moment, something washed over me.  I can only assume it was the unbidden g-d crashing into me.  I woke up from my nightmare.  I began to mutter and sing and cry and laugh.  I was scared and freaked out.  I was losing control and liked it.  I went to sleep that night expecting my "awakening" to just be some ridiculous teenage moment.  But the next morning everything was different.  I felt alive.  I had been raised in the church and even knew what it meant to be "saved" but I wasn't expecting what happened to me that night.

Robert Mulholland thinks Awakening is a two-sided experience: an encounter with the living God, and an encounter with the true self (page 80).  I tend to think Awakening is more akin to St. Bernard's first of four loves: loving one's self for self's sake.  This means g-d crashes into us and we realize we are lovable, we are "worth more than sparrows."  G-d loves us.  To repeat, I think this first stage of Awakening is more about us loving ourselves.  This is not bad.  This is necessary.  That cold January Monday night in my room was the best necessary first step for me:  I am loved.  I love me.  That's huge. May everyone wake up to love their self.

Mary Awakens to find Gabriel telling her in so many words "G-d loves you Mary."  Mary had 'found favor with God' probably because she was a good, honorable Jewish girl.  Mary must have been moral according to Torah, the Jewish Law.  She knew all about YHWH.  But this visit from Gabriel was magnificent - and terrifying!  It took her totally by surprise. ('Don't be afraid Mary!")  G-d comes unbidden to her, and she wakes up to love and hope. She discovers who she is (true self) as much as a young person can at that age.

Mulholland states the Awaken stage consists of two emotions: comfort and threat.  Yes, I agree.  Mary and I both experienced comfort (hope).  But we are immediately asked to bravely renounce our self-control.  This moment of Surrender is a huge threat to our self-governance.

"Decide!  Who is your Lord?"
"You Jesus, only you.  You are Maestro, you are my Master."

I think Americans who experience Awakening are what most of us would call "Christians."  There are Christians and then there are Followers.  As someone once said, "No one says 'no' to God, just 'not yet.'"  I was technically a Christian.  I believed the right information.  I knew my Bible.  I had been baptized and took the Lord's Supper.  I am not sure anyone can really experience Awakening until they are an official believer.  Look at the Apostle Paul's Awakening:  knocked off his horse to the ground.  He was a perfect Jew, a Rabbi, a Pharisee.  He knew all the right stuff about YHWH, Torah and Jewish history. Yet, the light of Christ was so bright it blinded him for days.  Perhaps those who think they know more fall harder. 

The spiritual journey is difficult.  As G.K. Chesterton put it "Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried." (quoted by D. Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines, page 1)  Those who cannot or will not allow the unbidden g-d to knock them to the ground, or doubt the announcement of g-d's love, his favor for them cannot and will not wake up.  The soil is just too hard packed.  Nothing can take root there.

"It is impossible to please God without faith" declares the writer of Hebrews (11:6).  And what is faith but stepping out on just a bit of information - not all the information (otherwise it isn't faith by definition). 

So what shall we do to Awaken?  I am probably talking to the wrong reader here, right?  No "unawakened" person is reading this probably.  Nonetheless, here's what we must do:  be like Mary - live honorably, learn your Bible, be in the church fellowship, get baptized, get your doctrines down, and learn what you believe and don't believe, pray, serve, and learn who you belong to... and be very very very open to the unbidden g-d.

This is what we are doing with our children at Lakeland these days:  preparing them for Awakening.  So don't be alarmed if your  "Christian" son or daughter suddenly becomes a Christian at camp or at a friend's church, or kneeling in front of their dresser in their room.  This is Awakening.

Next week, Purgation and Zechariah who is the opposite of Mary.

The Hallowed Ones Win

Once again, I took down all the Halloween decorations late last night.  This morning I nailed up a long white ribbon over my front door.  A white ribbon isn't as dramatic as jack-o-lanterns and skeletons and candy.  But I like its simplicity.  Like the martyrs who go before us, they are hidden and nameless for the most part.  Their blood is the seed of the gospel.  Today is All Saints' Day.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann says we in America (the western mind) misunderstand what a martyr is.  We think a martyr is a someone who died for their faith.  But he says we are all martyrs because a martyr is first a witness.  Think of Stephen:

“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7)

Stephen is a witness to Jesus.  He tells not only his private story but the story of the whole Hebrew nation.  A martyr "sees."  Do we see Jesus?  Can we say

"Look! I see the heavens open and Jesus feeding the children in Haiti! ...I see girls with fistulas being cured by Jesus!  ...I see my brothers and sisters in China secretly worshipping our Father!  ...I see water for the thristy, I see the Living Water!  ...I see special needs children loved ...I see someone standing up for the poor inner city students who want to attend a suburban school and get out of a dropout factory!" 

 Schmemann:  "A Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, finds Christ and rejoices in Him.  And this joy transforms all his human plans and programs, decisions and actions..." (p.113 Life...)

What a difference this view is from our simplistic and truncated view of the Christian as someone who just mentally agrees only with the doctrine of atonement as salvation.  We say 'a Christian is someone who has managed their sin problem properly.'  That is sad.  That is dead.  However "true" it might be, it is dead.  No wonder secular folk do not want to become Christians - there is no Life exhibited by those who say they are believers.  The average Christian in America basically looks just like a secular person... same tastes, same entertainment, same affluence, same vacations, same acquisitions...  Where is the witness?  Where are the martyrs?

We should think of ourselves as  witnesses first.  We see Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father!   We are martyrs because our old life has died and we are hidden inside the mysteries of the Unbidden G-d. 

Contrast the Christian martyrs with our secular heroes.  For secular heroes we put up statues and monuments, plaques and medals; arenas are named after them, their faces go on coins and bills.  We have solemn holidays for them.  All this secular honor is nice and appropriate of course.  Many secular heroes are even Christians. 

But those who live and die for their faith are martyrs.  Our story is simple and silent.  Our graves are mostly unmarked.  We cry out, "Lord forgive them for they know not what they do!"  We intercede for our persecutors' salvation.  We forgive them.  We are Christians - we have no enemies.  For seculars all glory is fleeting.  For Christians witnesses our honor comes only from our eternal Lord. 

I hope nobody notices my little white ribbon.  Yet it is my small rebellion.  I want my neighbors to know I celebrate All Saints' Day.  I love this day.  Perhaps someday I too will join them; and I pray like St. Therese d' Lisieux that I might achieve great sainthood by becoming nothing, a grain of sand trampled underfoot and forgotten.

Dear Emily, I Killed A Fly

Dear Emily, I Killed A Fly

He (she? it?) had been with me since I got to the hermitage on Monday.  He left me alone. But I wanted him dead.  I sit in front of the fire these beautiful October days and watch the dancing lights.  Gentle breeze is the light’s paintbrush, the shadows are canvas.  Everything is tempura on paper – thick but superficial (like this writing).

So I finally killed him. For two days he buzzed around my smelly old body – heaven for him I am sure.  He doesn’t need much to be happy – just a taste.  He just indulges in me.  But I object.  But he is a person to me.  Yeah, I killed him after I’d spent hours imagining his personality and motives.

“I just have to rest!  I fly and move, and go go go.  How busy I am.  Here on Monday I am fresh; but this slow peaceful Wednesday I am ready to slow down,” he says. 

I imagine he wants to torment me.  Funny how dualists think heaven will have no flies or mosquitoes.  Why should heaven be so sterile, clean or neutered?  Why can’t we imagine no fears, tears or pain AND mosquitoes and flies?  Like poor Lazarus, maybe this little guy is sent to tell me to wake up!  “Wake up O Sleeper and Christ’s light will shine on you!” 

Maybe I want to kill the fly because I am separate from him, and I want to keep it that way:  separate from all that is not me and my kingdom.  I am captain of my own ship, master:  Creation is mine!  Like ol’ Melkor, I only know how to sing out of tune, and make orcs in response to elves, burn instead of grow, clouds instead of starlight.  I kill because I need to kill to affirm my god-status.

Seconds and minutes tick by and the fly keeps trying to tell me something:  “He loves you.  I need you.” 

“Well I don’t need you – you touched me.  And nobody touches me, ‘friend.’  Fly really close to the fire and you’ll get energy as your fluids warm beyond wildest dreams, fly.” 

Well he ain’t stupid. I am though.  I get fixated on killing a fly. 

The poor are a fly.  We trap them between the screen and closed window and cruelly forget about them, pull the shade and let nature take its course.  If the fly is lucky then there is a jumping spider in there with him and his life will be short and oh so sweet.

“The Land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.” – Leviticus 25.23

What we need is Jubilee like good Dr. Luke prescribes.  “All you flies can land on me, buzz me, drink from my aroma!”  There – free at last to just be at home in heaven where you are, like in the inner city, in the worst of it, the most dangerous place.  We who are in power do things right.  And our might makes us right (Habbakuk). 

So the poor are flies now are they?  So you want to keep them, control them, love them and squeeze them – possess the poor?  So we jump from smelly shoes to the church’s pet?  De La Torre is right: justice never comes from above, always from below.  But Marx was always just another version of violence – not Jubilee. 

I need the poor.  I need the fly.

We need a cross to bear, not a cage, not a window, and not a rolled up newspaper.  I killed the fly.  And now I am remorseful.  Better spoken, I am alone.

The fire is dying out.  The day is getting older, the fly is dead and I have to go home to my productive life again, back to my self-made Israelite slavery at home.  Home but not free.  I am a slave to comfort and safety and increase.  “Increase.”  That’s a damnable name for a child.  My little dead fly would never be named “Increase.”  He’d be named “Yes, my child.”

I think I killed the fly because I fear the touch – the merger of heaven and me.  My false surface self cannot accept the sinking down into the depths of g-d, the falling, falling, falling.  We call it “The Fall” because we fear it so.  Total depravity is never really grasped by us.  We can’t imagine ourselves as poor and greedy as we really are. 

Flee!  Yes, we must flee because we fear.  Silence!  Yes, silence because we chatter and jabber like threatened squirrels.  Repose!  Yes, because we are lunging at a fly with a rolled up newspaper.  Our entire life is filled with swatting fly after fly.  How vain.  How sad.

The fly wins, Emily.  The Windows do close, and the sight no longer sees.  But we only rot to become the food of flies.  We make the flies so happy.  Our rottenness is so appreciated.  My little fly just wanted to show me his appreciation in advance.  And I can’t even hardly thank g-d for my life?  No wonder the mourner’s Kaddish is nothing by praise!

The Kaddish – upon the death of my fly:

May his great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed. “Amen.”

May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon.  “Amen.”

May His great Name be blessed forever and every.

Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One,

Blessed is He – “Blessed is He” – beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.  “Amen.”

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and Life upon us and upon all Israel.  “Amen.”

He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace, upon us and upon all Israel.  “Amen.” 

© Brother Dancha 2011

Pass the Test of John the Baptizer

My eight-year-old son is fond of this quote:  "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."  He must have learned this at his special school program for smart kids.  Maybe it resonates with him at some deep level because he was once an orphan - and many of the world's great leaders were once orphans.

John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, achieved greatness.  Born, achieved, and thrust - he had all three paths to greatness.  Today is just about my favorite "saint day" - John the Baptizer Day, June 24th, the exact opposite of Jesus' birthday.  I like this little irony the church cooked up:  "let's put John's birthday six months before Jesus' (which is true historically) but the irony of John's Solemnity is how it makes John small.  John's got smallnicity.  We should be thrust into smallnicity. 

There's a lot of talk about being like Jesus, but we should consider being like John.  At least it has a bit more potential for success.  After all, it is hard to become the most famous person in human history.  But to become nothing - I can aspire to that.  St. Therese d' Lisieux aspired to this goal... "that I could achieve sainthood by becoming nothing, a grain of sand trampled underfoot."  Actually Therese thought Jesus was small, trampled underfoot by the world.  True - crucified in the backwaters of the Roman Empire - a nobody who changed the world.

I guess I am thinking of John because he was even more so forgotten.  And that's the John Test for us:  may Jesus increase and we decrease.  May our day be 182.5 days away from Jesus' glory.  May we pass the test of smallnicity.

Some five years ago I decided to give away the majority of all the powerful and prestigious parts of pastoring to someone who did not earn or "deserve" such a powerful privilege, my new associate pastor.  Don't get me wrong, Garrett is a good preacher and all around nice guy with a sharper-than- most mind.  But what founding pastor gives away all the best of what he worked for?  I had been reading the contemplatives - Teresa of Avila, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton and even Eugene Peterson.  I was hanging out with contemplative friends like Rev. Dr. Craig Babb.  I was leaning hard into my monthly solitude (hermitage).  I was beginning to hang around monks.

I entered into the grand John experiment:  become less.  I told Garrett he was in charge of resources.  I told him he should be called "another pastor" instead of a lesser-than-me title.  Since then I have struggled weekly to maintain a low profile.  It isn't easy.  My entrepreneurial drive, my founder role, my visionary creative core have all been submerged into the great John test.  I even have to refrain from thanking and praising the best premier staff a pastor could have.  I know they think it is weird, but the moment I thank them and give out awards I grab back the authority and responsibility of their success.  As it is, they do it all themselves and know it.  Strange isn't it, that thanking someone and evaluating someone steals their achievement?  Thanking is a type of control.  But control it is.

John gave up control.  John ends up questioning Jesus' agenda.  "Are you the Expected One?"  John ends up losing his head.  John became nothing - except that he is famous for being 'not famous.'

What if we pursued our faith in Christ quietly behind the scenes?  What if we didn't need to control Washington DC?  What if we didn't need our photo taken with a poor child in Haiti?  What if our art isn't in a gallery?  What if our team doesn't win?  What if we didn't need to have a top ten CCM song on the radio?  What if our ultra cool discipleship program idea isn't funded?  What if nobody reads our blog?  What if we could speak the prophetic word of g-d and let the chips fall where they may - even if we are disliked by some in our own church? (I am thinking of my recent rift with those who didn't like me questioning America's militarism, default to violence and hegemonic power - because those in power always - I mean always - maintain position of privilege - even Christians.)  What if every time we we are ignored it drives us to the feet of Jesus?  What if our job was to make sure everyone else is acknowledged?  How would you accomplish this?  For now, for me it is to say very little.  With younger emerging leaders however, it is necessary to applaud them. We must embrace the great humiliation.  Fr. Richard Rohr said we should pray for one humiliation each day.

I believe there are millions of quiet unknown saints living quiet selfless lives serving the world - a world that may very well hate Christians (and I think the some of the western world hates Christians mostly because they've sought out power and position).  But what if - what if we are simply ignored and absolutely unknown?  What if nobody ever thanks us, gives us an award, acknowledges us in their book, or declares that we changed their life?  May we pass the test of John and pursue smallnicity.