A Prayer for the Grieving

Lord, have mercy.

We feel gut-punched and out of breath, darkness is like a cloak.

In a daze, we try to do normal things but we feel sure that life will never be “normal" again.

Death is palpable and offensive, a stench in our nostrils that is at the heart of everything wrong.

It feels as if all that is good and life-giving is lost to us. It feels as if all we’ve ever felt is the deep heart-wrenching pain of loss!

Lord, have mercy

Have mercy, Lord - visit us in our loneliness, grief and confusion! Don’t forget about us! See our desolation, know our desperation! If you don’t reveal yourself in this place of ash and sulphur, we shall never rise again. They tell us that you know what it is to suffer. Bring your experience of suffering, pain and loss to us and gently teach us how to live in the midst of raging death.

In the place where we have no more words, speak to us in the silence.

If we don’t know you better, we won’t make it. Help us know you Lord; reveal yourself again and open our hearts. Give us courage to stay open to you and others.

Forgive us for trying to walk this path alone. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to pick up the phone and let somebody in. We fear rejection and misunderstanding and the bane of trite answers. Give us safe friends Lord, who can let us hurt and be silent with us and weep. Give us friends who know the weight of what we feel and the weight of what we have lost.

Help us in the little things, Lord. The now momentous tasks of getting up and showering, fixing breakfast and driving to work. These common things used to be so trivial, now we can barely manage them. Help us get through the day; help us get through the next 15 minutes.

Lord, have mercy

What Work Is - Part 2 (Labor Day Reflection)

I'm still thinking a great deal about work, and how to interpret it through the lens of the Kingdom of God and discipleship to Jesus (see Part One here). See also my son Samuel's new blog and his reflections on work here.

Joan Chittister has a long tradition of drawing wisdom from monastic spirituality for living life today. I don't agree with everything she says, but her reflections on work are right on the money and worthy of reproducing here.

The implications of a spirituality of work in a world such as ours are clear, it seems: Work is my gift to the world. It is my social fruitfulness. It ties me to my neighbor and binds me to the future.

Work is the way I am saved from total self-centeredness. It gives me a reason to exist that is larger than myself. It makes me part of possibility. It gives me hope. Martin Luther wrote, “If I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree today.”

Work gives me a place in salvation. It helps redeem the world from sin. It enables creation to go on creating. It brings us all one step closer to what the kingdom is meant to be.

Work is meant to build community. When we work for others, we give ourselves and we can give alms as well. We never work, in other words, for our own good alone.

Work leads to self-fulfillment. It uses the gifts and talents we know we have and it calls on gifts of which we are unaware.

Work is its own asceticism. When we face the work at hand, with all its difficulties and all its rigors and all its repetition and all its irritations and accept it, we do not need to traffic in symbolic penances. What today’s work brings is what is really due from me to God. And if we do it well, we will have spiritual discipline aplenty. What’s more, when this is not the job we want but we cannot get any other, when this is not the wage we need to make ends meet but they will not pay more, when we see younger workers and more automated machines and job slowdowns begin to encroach on the work we once thought would be our lifetime security, then virtues of faith and simplicity of life and humility come into play in ways too real to be reduced to empty rituals or religious gestures. Then work becomes the raw material of wisdom and holy abandonment.

Finally, work is the way we really live in solidarity with the poor of the world. Work is our commitment not to live off others, not to sponge, not to shirk, not to cheat. Giving less than a day’s work for a day’s pay, shunting work off onto underlings, assuming that personal days are automatically just additional vacation days, taking thirty-minute coffee breaks in the fifteen-minute schedule, doing one coat of paint where we promised to do two, are not what was meant by “till the Garden and keep it.”

Work is our gift to the future. It is our sign that God goes on working the world through us. It is the very stuff of divine ambition. And it will never be over. The philosopher wrote, “Do you want a test to know if your work in life is over? If you are still alive, it isn’t.” As the rabbi and the disciple both knew well, God needs us to complete God’s work. Now. 

—from In the Heart of the Temple, by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge 2004)

What Work Is

I recently wrote out some thoughts for a friend who is in a painful season of unemployment, seeking to cast a broad vision for him of what work is:

Work is a gift given by God (before the fall) to teach us to share with him in the creation of what is good in the world he has made. Since we are image bearers, when we work we create value (assuming our occupation is contributing to society, and not corrupting it). 

Work is the creation of value in the sense that we are helping a business bring their vision of providing goods and services to life. We can find meaning in our work as we work alongside God in this project; we seek his help as we work and offer all our efforts up to him and leave the outcomes with him. 

The curse of the fall related to work is "sweat," meaning we now face the grind of working without God. Jesus redeems this for us though, and invites us to bring our work back into God's life and find work meaningful and life giving in and with him.

Knowing and Stillness

I've been feeling increasingly anxious lately as my long-term temp contract with Sysco Foods comes to an end soon with no word yet if they will offer me a full-time position or I will be laid off. I woke up this morning with tension in my body once again and my mind swirling over it.

As I sat with Psalm 46 for a few moments to help me enter into a time of silence and solitude, the Lord spoke powerfully to me. The phrase that spoke most clearly was "Be still, and know that I am God," a frequent guide into silence. Whereas sometimes I hear this phrase as some form of "Shut up, Scott, and respect God as God!" (which is a form of derogatory correction that actually exposes my functional view of God), this morning I heard it differently. It brought me into broad skies and green pastures.

Psalm 46:1-3, 10-11 NIV

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present [and well proven] help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

The Holy Spirit applied this word to my situation:

Be still, Scott, and know me as God - your God, who leads, saves, cares for you and holds you. I AM your Shepherd, your God, so you don't have to be god. The pressure's off to figure everything out, to provide for yourself and your family, to make your life "work" and come out "right."

Trust in me with all your heart and lean on me instead of your own meager resources; your limited wisdom and power, your connections and experiences cannot bring you the peace and joy you were made for. In all your ways and means acknowledge me as your God and Father, know me as the living God who goes before you, is with you and has never failed you, and I will direct your paths and make them life-giving so you won't have to! You know well the burden of trying to make your paths straight and life-giving on your own; it leads to only weary despair. You don't need to do that anymore. Let go of your life as a thing to be managed and open yourself to the life I bring you moment by moment. Submit to this knowing and to the fruit it yields.

The job search is over, Scott. The job for "Shepherd, Father, Teacher and Lord" is over - I am more than able to care for you and those you love; my hopeful and joyful vision for your life is wide and vast, and has ample room for your uncertainty, anxiety, and struggles to learn. Your job is to trust and obey, mine is to guide and provide, save and heal. When you get these mixed up there is no end to your distress. My yoke is easy and my burden is light; rest for your soul is always right here, right now.

To "know that I am God" also means to "know that you are loved, safe and cared for." This is what the birds and flowers know without thinking about it. They are "careless in the care of God," and you can be too. They exist in the reality of my Kingdom and are not hurried or worried. Look to them and learn. Listen carefully for the slow patient work of God.

See Deut 31:8; 33:12; Matthew 6:25-34; 11:25-30; Prov 3:5-7; Ps 23, 46; Phil 4:4-7

Let the Beloved of the Lord Rest Secure

The Lord brought this Word back to me when I was struggling with anxiety recently. It is a prophetic blessing that Moses gave to the tribe of Benjamin just before his (Moses') death:

“Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him,
    for he shields him all day long,
    and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.” ( Deut 33:12 NIV)

Benjamin was the favored brother that the Hebrew Patriarch Joseph fawned over (as did Jacob - Genesis 42:4, 38; 43:29-34; 45:14). There has often been special affection in the Bible's story-line for Benjamin (Genesis 35:16-18), so it makes sense that Moses would use Benjamin's blessing to launch into a wider, deeper blessing that is linked to the Fatherhood of God. God is blessing his people through Moses like Jacob/Joseph blessed Benjamin. This blessing now comes through Jesus to all of his friends, those who are trusting in Him.

Interesting side note - "the one the Lord loves" - almost the identical phrase is used to refer to Jesus' friend Lazarus after he died (used by his sisters in John 11:3). Next time when you're praying try using this - "Lord, the one you love is _________ " (sick, hurting, needy, sinful, thankful, etc.)

Some affirmations that bubble to the surface:

• I am beloved, and I rest secure in the love of Yahweh who is with me.

• His love shields me all day long, through every moment, conversation and circumstance. Nothing can separate me from this love.

• I am beloved of the Lord and am invited to rest against his mighty chest (between his shoulders). Upon his shoulders he bears the government of the world (Isaiah 9:6) and my life as well as all outcomes. I can trust my "little kingdom" to him.

• I can rest. I can stop managing my life and trying to get people to do things. I can stop trying to make things happen and receive my life as a gift of God.

May we drink from the Trinitarian well before us! Disciples of Jesus are safely immersed in God.

Friendship and Barrenness

I am in a season of life right now where I don't have much "inspiration" to write. The fields of productive and creative writing lie fallow, and that's all right. It's for the best, actually, as cycles and rhythms of fruitfulness and barrenness are to be expected and welcomed in any healthy life. I trust God that other important things are going on in the soil under the surface!

I continue to be amazed at how vital relationships are for living life with Jesus. We cannot do this alone! I woke up this morning overwhelmed by everything undone in my life and knew that I needed to talk to my wife to help me sort out what was important and what was not (she did, she's so smart - and pretty!). I am beginning to give myself to rhythms of meeting with new friends here in Spokane, which adds to my regular phone calls to friends back in Louisville, men I have bled and shed tears with in the trenches of the heart. 

Friends that matter, that count, are not those who tell me what to do or how to behave; they are those who invite me into a better vision of life with God than the one I am currently devoted to and invested in. Usually that comes as we hunger together for God for help in broken places and torn and weary hearts. As we tell each other what's going inside as Jesus-friends, we are learning how to interpret ourselves as we learn to interpret each other in light of God.

Eugene Peterson, an old master, put it this way:

"Spiritual counsel, easy prayerful conversation between companions engaged in a common task, is [becoming] less and less frequent. But when Jesus designated his disciples 'friends' (John 15:15) in that last extended conversation he had with them, he introduced a term that encouraged the continuing of the conversation. 'Friend' sets us in a nonhierarchical, open, informal, spontaneous company of Jesus-friends, who verbally develop relationships of responsibility and intimacy by means of conversation. Characteristically, we do not make pronouncements to one another or look up texts by which to challenge each other; we simply talk out whatever feelings or thoughts are in our hearts as Jesus' friends." (The Wisdom of the Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends, 17)

Whether you are in a place of barrenness or fruitfulness, reach out and invite a few safe others into what you're experiencing in the name of God. It takes courage to do this, to listen to their story - not to fix or manage - but to understand and know the other. When we offer this kind of knowing to another we validate their existence and help them consider new ways to interpret their struggles, sorrows, habits and joys in the light of God's Kingdom. We will find Jesus in our midst.

Camas Lilies

a Poem by Lynn Ungar

Consider the lilies of the field,

the blue banks of camas opening

into acres of sky along the road.

Would the longing to lie down

and be washed by that beauty

abate if you knew their usefulness,

how the natives ground their bulbs

for flour, how the settlers’ hogs

uprooted them, grunting in gleeful

oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you—what of your rushed

and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—

papers, plans, appointments, everything—

leaving only a note: “Gone

to the fields to be lovely. Be back

when I’m through with blooming.”

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,

the camas lilies gaze out above the grass

from their tender blue eyes.

Even in sleep your life will shine.

Make no mistake. Of course

your work will always matter.

Yet Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

Re-Vision

I invite you to read through this passage slowly and see what it provokes in your mind and heart - 

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!

My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home,
    and the swallow a nest for herself,
    where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
    Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
    they are ever praising you.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
    whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
    they make it a place of springs;
    the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength,
    till each appears before God in Zion. (Psalm 84:1-7 NIV)

As I marinated my mind in this Psalm this week I wrote down in my journal how I was internalizing it and the vision it is inviting me into:

How blessed are those who dwell moment by moment with God in the loveliness of his dwelling! Their hearts and minds are that dwelling, captivated as they are by the vision and taste of God's goodness and greatness. This vision completely transforms their experience of reality as it gets filtered through the lens of God's pervasive and lovely presence. The key to interpreting my daily reality lies here. Whatever comes to me today, nothing can separate me from God's dwelling in Christ.

Jesus said, “Rethink your life in the light of the fact that the kingdom of the heavens is now open to all” (Matt 4:17, Dallas Willard paraphrase)

Even the desert experience (Valley of Baka, or Valley of Tears) can become flooded with springing fountains of life as tears are tenderly transformed into living waters, saturated with God's sufficiency. The one who dwells with God in trust is never separated from his care! Therefore they have nothing to fear, for in this world they go from strength to strength, from sufficiency to sufficiency. This is not prosperity as the world defines it, it is well-being of the soul, a deep rootedness in the safety and sufficiency of the Trinitarian God. The world is a perfectly safe place for me to be in light of the fact that the Lord is my good Shepherd, I lack no good thing.

And how blessed all those in whom you live,    whose lives become roads you travel;They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,    discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and    at the last turn—Zion! God in full view! (Ps 84:5-7 MSG)

(Cf. Ps 23; Jeremiah 17:5-8; Mark 1:15; Phil. 4:4ff)

What about you? What is God's invitation to you?

Dandelion School

I often feel enticed outside in order to behold beauty. One of the things I have learned to seek from these times is what I might learn from what I behold. By observing the processes of river and sky, bird and flower, I can better understand the ways God works and who He is. I approach as an apprentice of Jesus who made it all and holds it all together (John 1:3; Col. 1:17; Heb 1:3). 

Psalm 19:1 NIV
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." 

Psalm 33:5 MSG
"Earth is drenched in Yahweh's affectionate satisfaction" 

One thing I've often overlooked are dandelions. Their name comes from the "lion-like teeth" leaves that make up their green base. They are a weed that take over grassy areas with ease. 

Have you ever actually stopped and looked at one? Can you see how yellow they are? It's like holding a little sun.

After a while they turn white and stick their heads high to be carried by the wind in order to propagate themselves. It's pretty ingenious! They use the natural processes around them (wind) in order to make sure that their death is not final.

It takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks for the yellows to give way to the whites. Their short life span speaks to me of the transitory nature of human life. The Scriptures compare human life in this world to the life span of a flower that is here today and gone tomorrow (Isaiah 40:7-8). We shine for a while but soon our hair turns white and we either propagate or stagnate; we either pass along what we have learned and have become or we are forgotten forever on the earth. 

Go to the Dandelions to see what you can learn from them. They are speaking of realities and of processes that we all share as children of God through trust in Christ.

Matthew 6:28-30 NIV
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 

Wild Streams: An Analogy for the Church

I felt led to take the family down to Spokane Falls last Sunday in order to see what the Falls could teach us about "Church" and the ways God works. The snows have begun to melt and the Spokane river is swollen as it rages through downtown Spokane.

As we listened and reflected, my son Samuel came up with this wise observation:

"Though the waters are wild and uncontrolled, they are contained within boundaries that have been formed over long periods of time."

Wow!

I thought of how the Trinitarian Life of God is gushing and ever-flowing, transforming disciples of Jesus and overflowing into the world around us. I thought of the variety of traditions that have tapped into this river over long periods of time. I thought of the wonderful life-giving wine in a variety of wineskins and I feel a sense of awe and humility. 

May our unity as God's people be that we drink from this wild stream together and not that we worry so much about the containers. As we gather together, we join a stream of Life that is far older than our particular tradition, stretching beyond time into the Eternal heart of God Himself.

"Today a mighty river of the Spirit is bursting forth from the hearts of women and men, boys and girls. It is a deep river of divine intimacy, a powerful river of holy living, a dancing river of jubilation in the Spirit, and a broad river of unconditional love for all peoples. As Jesus says, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.' (John 7:38)" (Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditiosn of Christian Faith, xv.)

Some Thoughts on the Body and the Kingdom of God

A dear friend and I were recently discussing a statement I had given him regarding the role of the body in the Kingdom of God:

​

"I am God's will in the place and time where I currently am in my embodied self, holy and pleasing to him, bearer of the Kingdom of God in my body to those around me."

This statement brings together several key Scriptures regarding the body:

Rom 12:1-2

​ (cf. Rom 6:11-14)

​

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (ESV)

​​

Hebrews 10:5-7

​ (cf. Ps 40:6-8)​

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,

    but a body you prepared for me;

with burnt offerings and sin offerings

    you were not pleased.

Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—

    I have come to do your will, my God.’”

​ (NIV)​

My body is the place where my will is done

​.​

 

​Apart from

 the mind, 

​the body 

is the only realm I have direct control over. It is my 

​"​

power pack,

​"​

 my only faculty for directly affecting the world around me

​. Through my body, my kingdom relates to all other kingdoms. The body provides a physical boundary/border between persons, which is why physical and sexual abuse are so damaging to the soul - they are profound violations of personal kingdom.

We were created to have bodies surrendered to our 

​will

 under God and his goodness. When we surrender and are "aligned

​,​

" then the boundaries between my will/kingdom and God's will/kingdom begin to blur

​, mesh and interpenetrate​

. This is PRESENCE

​, and it takes a lifetime to develop (usually through much suffering!)​

. We bear in our bodies the presence of the Kingdom

​ of God​

 to the extent that they are surrendered to

​- and abiding in- ​

 

​Jesus 

and his will.

​ This is why, in practicing the presence of God, Frank Laubach learned to focus on doing the will of God every minute.​

"Although I have been a minister and a missionary for fifteen years, I have not lived the entire day of every day in minute by minute effort to follow the will of God. Two years ago a profound dissatisfaction led me to begin trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour. Other people to whom I confessed this intention said it was impossible. I judge from what I have heard that few people are really trying even that. But this year I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, “What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father, do you desire done this minute?” It is clear that this is exactly what Jesus was doing all day every day." (Frank Laubach, Letters by a Modern Mystic, p.6; entry for January 20, 1930).

One of my favorite quotes from Dallas Willard's Knowing Christ Today is relevant here:

"With these two preliminaries in place—and when they are in place we will certainly be aware that God is acting in us—we grow in our knowledge of Christ-with-us by, first of all, constant expectation of him in the place where we are, wherever that may be. “The sacrament of the present moment,” as it is sometimes called, is from the human side nothing but the invocation, expectation, and receptivity of God’s presence and activity where we are and in what we are doing at any given time. Then we steadily grow in graceful interactions with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They gradually take up all of our life into their trinitarian life (John 17:21–24)." (p.153)

​Further, the statement above alludes to the fact that the body can only be present to its surroundings; there is no past or future except what our minds introduce. The place and time that is currently occupied by my body (and interacting with my body) are the only conditions that exist in which to seek and find God's Kingdom, the only conditions in which I can taste and see, test, discern and prove.​

The Resolve of Vision

"God, I want to give You every minute of this year. I shall try to keep You in mind every moment of my waking hours. I shall try to let my hand write what You direct. I shall try to let You be the speaker and direct every word. I shall try to let You direct my acts. I shall try to learn Your language as it was taught by Jesus and all others through whom You speak - in beauty and singing birds and cool breezes, in radiant Christlike faces, in sacrifices and in tears. It will cost not only much, but everything that conflicts with this resolve." (Frank Laubach, Frank Laubach's Prayer Diary, 5.)

Two phrases from this luminous quote strike me:

"I want" (1x)
"I shall try" (5x)

Desire, born out of enticing vision, gives birth to intention and means. Commenting on the parables of Jesus, John Ortberg has said that "the mark of a transforming vision is its ability to elicit unforced desire." (See here for one version of this statement) We cannot just read a quote like the one above and "try" like Laubach did. We need to get behind the "try" and seek a vision that would naturally lead to such efforts.

From this statement, what would you say was Laubach's view of God? of himself? of the world?

How does this compare with your view(s)?

Spend some time in silence and solitude this week and allow your heart to mull over these things.

Lord Jesus, heal our vision. We are so narrow and shallow with our eyes. We only see what we want to see; we only see what will help us regain certainty, exert control and indulge comfort. Disrupt our lives so that we might entertain new thoughts, emotions, ideas and images. Let us linger over disappointment, suffering, mystery and beauty to see what they can teach us. Set us on fire with a vision of the nearness and goodness of your Kingdom such that we might live lives pleasing to you, lives that take on the epic qualities of your mind and heart.

Give Me Faith

"Give me faith now to believe that thou canst be all in all to me, according to my need, if only I renounce all proud self-dependence and put my trust in thee.

Forbid it, O Father, that the difficulty of living well should ever tempt me to fall into any kind of heedlessness or despair. May I keep it ever in mind that this human life was once divinely lived and this world once nobly overcome and this body of flesh, that now so sorely tries me, once made it into thy perfect dwelling place."

(John Baillie, Diary of Private Prayer)

My Heart Aches

A Journal entry from October 22, 2015

My heart aches
Lonely, thirsty sadness

On the brink of another 
loss of heart

As another dream 
slowly rips apart

I need a bigger and better story
than the one I currently inhabit.

"You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth,You will bring me up again.You will increase my greatness and comfort me again." (Psalm 71:20-21 ESV)

I am the son who ran
I am the son who stayed

Is this how Moses learned humility?
Is this how Joseph's blessedness got from his coat into his bones?

Lead me to a bush burning
Redeem my life from the pit.

They found in God
a story big enough to live!

Boundary lines beyond
The borders of their sorrow.

God-with-us: The Way, The Companion, The Comfort

The great ones learned to receive
obscurity, loneliness, and insignificance
as teachers and friends

I'd rather be ripped apart by love
than held together by what I can control.