Idle and Blessed

We run away from each other, us humans. We flee because we are unknown and because we are afraid to be known. We flee the reflections of ourselves we see in others, because it's the things we hate in ourselves we most hate in those closest to us. Life is a test to see if we can stay put more than we run. If we can want to be known by someone more than we want to be safe. If we can look another person in the eye day after day, in wealth and poverty, sickness and health, and say, "This is who I am." And if someone can do that to us, if we can look them in the eye too, and say, "I see." What makes a runner ok with staying put? What makes us ready to know and be known? How are two people ready at the same time? I think all of us want to pulled in by someone. I just don't know if we all want it enough to stop being afraid and let it happen. And if any of us are strong enough to watch someone struggle to stay put, waiting for them. Ready for them. Prom...

i think about religion in terms of research papers, mostly. when others hear a sermon, i hear doctrines, theologies, greek, hebrew, editors, church history, connections to sociology, hauerwas' ecclesiology, rauschenbusch's social gospel, the enlightenment, the west, the east, the contemplatives, centuries of developments to get us here... i think about spirituality in terms of reflective essay assignments. when others talk about ministry, i hear methods, motivations, doctrinal assertions, assumptions about systems of injustice, implications like gentrification on poor communities... its good. i hear this is the time for it. i think deeply and care deeply and am in awe of this thing I study and love. but my mind is full and my heart must catch up. in developing a gift there is a time to act and a time to stop acting. gifts are not at our whim and cannot be forced. if my gift is guiding others toward their spiritual growth, there's a time for me to let the gift re...

the lesson of the moth by don marquis i was talking to a moth the other evening he was trying to break into an electric light bulb and fry himself on the wires why do you fellows pull this stunt i asked him because it is the conventional thing for moths or why if that had been an uncovered candle instead of an electric light bulb you would now be a small unsightly cinder have you no sense plenty of it he answered but at times we get tired of using it we get bored with the routine and crave beauty and excitement fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while so we wad all our life up into one little roll and then we shoot the roll that is what life is for it is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty...

Kitten purring on my lap. Soft traffic out the front windows. Thinking about all the places grace touches, and how it doesn't shrink back at our pain. Grace gently says you're enough now . It boldly says you're free now . No matter how messy things get, no matter how ugly those raw parts of our hearts are. Grace stops us in our tracks because it not only says you're ok again... it also says you're not going to stop there. The smallest blessings of grace are often the greatest and sustain us best. A breeze on the porch. The quiet chatter in our heads as we run a few miles at dawn. The presence of one or two soul friends in a desert of disconnection. A cup of coffee. A timely Proverb. Fresh basil. Children and swings and feelings of freedom. The coming of fall in the air as we turn our face toward the sun. In these we feel God pressing into us... grace . And it is everywhere in our ordinary. Trust. In these graces, in these comings of heaven to earth, we...

Go To The Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.

The Hebrew phrase "formless and void," used in Genesis 1 to describe the earth as God began to create, is תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ  ("tohu vabohu"). It rhymes and it's poetic, like all of the creation account in the Hebrew language. In fact, it rhymes a little too well. "Tohu vabohu." Dr. McEntire says it seems like a phrase someone made up to play with words. And Dr. Mc knows a lot about Hebrew and Aramaic. He says it seems like something Dr. Seuss would do. Make two words that rhyme like that and describe something unique and then those two words get absorbed into the Hebrew language and used elsewhere. The Germans took the phrase "tohu vabohu" and started using it in their language. Maybe the Hebrews did that too, in the first place. Maybe the writer of Genesis was an ancient Hebrew Dr. Seuss. So it means "formless and void," but when you read it in Hebrew it's poetry and it's beauty, and who know what it would mean outs...

Have you heard of that book "When Helping Hurts?" And all those new ideas emerging about Christian missions and community development? A lot of people are jumping on board with it, and I think it's just fantastic. The guy who wrote that book says we should be asking people what their dreams are. Instead of giving them material goods, we should be honoring them as people and giving them the tools they need to succeed for themselves. He says we should ask them "what are your dreams?" and "what are the obstacles keeping you from your dreams?" The whole idea is to empower people in materially poor cultures to thrive in their own right, not simply as recipients of charity. I have a story to tell which comes to mind each time I talk about these ideas. When I was in Russia two summers ago, living with the Kvashens (this is them:), I decided one day to climb a mountain. The boys and I did this a couple times that summer, along with the Kutsenko k...