The Corner

Velveteen Rabbi : come, find the miracles

One of the blogs that animates my imagination the most is Velveteen Rabbi by Rachel Barenblat.  Today, Rachel posted a poem inspired by a prompt at Big Tent Poetry , which invited poets to use various poetry tools to spark a poem which will take us somewhere new.

The entire poem and the word clud are extrardinary - but this section resonated with my soul:

your children can teach you
    to experience revelation
        they remember the wonders

our story is old
    but today is new
        come, find the miracles

muchos gracias, Rachel !

searching for a sense-making pattern: edge transforms the core

Our season in a more traditional, liturgical congregation has been more disruptive than I imagined. 

I am more aware of the impact of being in feral communities for the past 6 years, in a personal setting that is more like a recovery group than a coffee hour after worship. 

In this season back to our tradition, we have worshipped for 6 weeks among strangers - I am sad to to realize I know 2 people's name other than the pastor.  Liturgy - the work of the people - feels like the ritual of strangers, at times.

My reflections on these disruptions were helped a bit by two insights over the last week or so.  The first was a provocative post Where Are We? by Jeffrey Jones.  In the piece adapated from his book  Traveling Together: A Guide for Disciple-Forming Congregations, Jones writes of the personal and congregational stirrings that he is in the middle of, summarizing with a set of questions - this one clicked with me the most:

Could it be that the church has become so much a product of the age that it has lost a clear sense of its own unique role and purpose?

My sense is that the answer to this question is increasingly YES. 

Some churches have embraced the cult of man with the mic, placing a charismatic guy (it's always a guy) at the core as the soothsayer or entertainer who rivals Tony Robbins or Rush Limbaugh in his ability to engage. 

Some churches have hunkered down, stripping away everything but the core.  They place "what has been done around before" at the core, occasionaly painting it with varnish of new marketing or updated lingo.

Neither model seems viable as a transforming body, as a place to collapse upon G_d and another, as a mplace to be sent out from to embody the love & grace that heals.

What to do ?  For me, true change happens when the core moves to the edge, an idea that John Hagel III and John Seely Brown wrote about in a business setting in this great post:

In today’s fast-moving, chaotic world, edges are beginning to take on greater meaning. Not only in their ability to help us recognize new ideas but, perhaps more importantly, in the power they give us to escape the old ones.

It seems like at our core, we yearn for church to find a "new normal", to be that one place where change and complexity are not surrounding us.  Whether it means syepping off the podium or away from the chilly distance, the only direction that I can see is to the edges.

 

 

Lenten Synchroblog: Couldn't Jesus be a little less weird ?

Nicodemus showed up in churches yesterday, with this reading.  he is the type of character in sacred texts i really like - he asks questions, he pushes, he wrestles with G_d.

Jesus tells Nicodemus about being born again or from above for a new womb - Nicodemus replies

How can these things be ?

As in:

What do you mean by this?

How does this happen ?

What Jesus says is so often out of this world.  not out of this world like tasting great BBQ and exclaiming it is out this world.

I mean out of this world as in weird. 

I live in a town that prizes weird, so I can usually run with the weirdest of them.

But much of what I hear in Lent about the sayings of Jesus strikes me as weird.  Like Nicodemus, I need the Cliff Notes, I need it repeated.

Honestly, I'd prefer a savior who is a little less weird.

Scott Berkun is a writer I really, really like.  He helps remind me about weird:

They told Van Gogh he used too much paint, and Englebart that the mouse was pointless. Galileo and Copernicus were called heretics for seeing the world for what it was. Dylan and Guthrie were told they couldn’t sing and that they had nothing to say. DaVinci’s helicopters and Tesla’s radio waves stayed in notebooks for years, as the ideas were too weird for ordinary minds to understand.

Most great ideas seem weird at first.

Lenten Synchroblog: the desert winds

out in the desert times of life, sometimes the wind howls.  a sound that cuts to the core, a force that feels like it will rip you apart.

the desert windrips away at good people, people who live & move & have their being.  it rips at people in Japan, Libya and at people next door.

last week, i heard it ripped away at some I met once and I've "known" via Fb and chat:  David Kuo.  He twittered this heart-breaking news:

Hard, hard day - new brain tumor growing aggressively. Will learn more tomorrow. God is as good as he was at the best of times.

if you are someone who prays, please do for David, Kim and their family.

今日、我々はすべての日本人です "Today, we are all Japanese."

Japan Earthquake
photo from egbok4919

 

Oh God, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined, we plead for your mercy.
 
As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving, fragile planet we call home.
Yet you never forget us.
 
Oh God, come to our assistance
 
Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief and the names of missing dead.
 
Comfort them, Oh God, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.
 
Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly in this tragedy.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.
 
Fill our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day, to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.
 
And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life's daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.
 
For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground, your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.
 
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever. Amen

 
~ Author unknown ~

via Resources for Shakey Places

Lenten Synchroblog: taking the low place

one of my fav bloggers lizzie everard has a post with great insights on the choices jesus made while in the desert - in her post Jesus Face Down in the Dust she points out that jesus

chose not to agree with those things and instead took the low place. He shuffled around in the wilderness with his face in the dust, putting aside food, riches and temptations of power. He chose not to wield power. He was truly sold out for another way.

this is not how I was taught, how i react at an instintual level.  i suceed if i can "make things happen", when I can wield power, marshall resources.  as a male in a western culture, this posture is as un-natural as any yoga pose or estern adjustment.   honestly, people shuffling around in the wilderness scare the hell out of me.

lizze goes on to ask about our own "bad hang ups on status, power, consumerism and self-interest".  she pushes it even further:

How many of the choices we make purely in our own interest mean someone else has to suffer or slog for them to be realised?

taking the low place is what lizzie calls this.  there is a great sneaker pimps song that has this chorus:

Just to find yourself
I hope you find yourself
In a low place like home
Low place like home

what a challenging idea - to realize this low place is our home, where our graeter good resides.  rather than stretch for higher ground, the tempted G-d in flesh beckons me in the desert to lay low, to come home.

Lenten Synchroblog: power is awfully tempting

the 40 days of Lent recall the 40 days of Jesus' being tempted in the wilderness (Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Lk 4:1-13).  the temptations are enthralling story-telling, tapping into narrative threads that seem to be at the core of our being. 

in the parable The Grand Inquisitor, Dostoevsky suggests that maybe the devil wasn't so much tempting Jesus.  Instead, the parable suggests the devil was presenting Jesus with the different options he could take to be a Messiah, and making him choose one.

i think about this in relation to myself & the 3rd temptation that is told in the stories attributed to Luke & Matthew.  the devil is said to have tempted Jesus to worship the devil in return for all the kingdoms of the world.  Control, power, global domination - these are offered in return for worship.

Hebrews 4:15 states that Jesus is one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.  i confess i want a Jesus who can provide me with control, the kind of power that CNN covers with breaking news, the kind of global domination that empire and businesses strive for.

if I am honest with myself,  this is not just for me - I really want "successful" Christian leaders.  i want women & men who have control, exhibit power and can embody dominion over a whole host of tasks and skills.  let's be honest - who wants "losers" to be their spiritual shepherd, who wants misfits to be trailguides for our spiritual journey.

on a bike ride last weekend, I thought of this when I heard these lyrics from Arcade Fire song City with No Children:

You never trust a millionaire
Quoting the sermon on the mount
I used to think I was not like them
But I'm beginning to have my doubts
My doubts about it

this past sunday, the preacher spoke of the word awful, the two almost opposing meanings of that word:

• Extremely bad or unpleasant
• Commanding awe

i am too often tempted by the extremely bad or unpleasant equation - absolute power in return for worshipping a life that is counter to the image we are made, control that is truly evil in that I choose a path that is counter to my creation.

when I let myself go to that still & quiet place, to the desert w/in me, I know that the power Jesus choose was somethings that commands awe - that mashup of emotions of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might. 

I am beginning to have my doubts, doubts about myself, that I am willing to head out to that desert in my life, that the millionaire in me holds the control, that I have answered the devil's temptation.  this Lent, I will try to head out to that desert - and choose the power of authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might.

Lenten Synchroblog: it begins with an invitation

Today, we stood in churches all around this fragile planet, our island home.  As worship gatherings took place to re-member Ash Wednesday, these words were said:

Brothers and sisters in Christ, since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord’s passion and resurrection and prepared for this by a season of penitence and fasting. By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and indevotion to our Lord. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent,by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

What a powerful thing, to start a season that holds so much meaning with a simple invitation.  The Divine beckons us, calls out to us, motions to follow along on a path apart.

Adios Tempus Per Annum

today marks the end of ordinary time, at least for a while.  for many christian traditions, ordinary time encompasses that part of the liturgical year that does not fall within the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.

ordinary time makes up 33 of the 52 weeks of the church year around the globe.  whether you are othodox in tripoli, catholic in tokoyo or anglican in bakersfield, you spend most of the church year in ordinary time.

that seems so consistent with how life is lived - that so much of what makes up life is in the ordinary time, in the middle of the story, between act 1 and the final act.

tomorrow, a new page turns in the story as lent begins.  lent is my favorite season of the church year.  a time in the desert, filled with stories of journeying and yearning for meaning.  it is most definitely not ordinary - instead focussed on the supernatural things that comprise the story of an incarnated G_d submitting to human stories and illumating them with transformation.

water made into wine.  temptation made into expression.  bread made into body.  death made into new life. 

adjusting to being G_d's beloved

/(trăns-fĭgˌyə-rāˈshən)/

• a marked change in form or appearance
• a metamorphosis

Yesterday, in many Protestant faith communities, a story was shared from the Gospel attributed to Matthew.  Moses and Elijah, the two preeminent figures of Judaism, appear on a mountain with Jesus. Some supernatural stuff transpires, which Jesus tells his followers to not be scared of, but also not to tell people about.

This weekend, we went to see The Adjustment Bureau , a romantic fantasy thriller film.  The film contrasts a life according to plan with a life animated by love.  It fascinated me that the film was almost completely populated by men, with the exception of a female character who embodied transformation by  love.

In this time where I have been ill, I have been frightened and heartened.  Frightened by the anxiety that seems to pulse w/in me, a toxic combination of a need to control and the fear of supernatural stuff. Heartened by the love embodied by so many people and so many small actions.

Over the last 10 years, I have wrestled with a marked change in my life, one that I have made small progress on.  I tried a massive transfiguration, shoved into a life ill suited to that level of change.  It did not work out so well.  There have been marked adjustments to "the plan", but I remain straddled between a corp life and a life I yearn for.

Why the straddle ?  Well, transfiguration is complex.  But when I am quiet and honest with myself, I think the straddle is built on fear.  The kind of fear that Marianne Williamson wrote about in her book book A Return to Love:

 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I routinely make decisions that are NOT driven by manifesting God's glory within me.  I perfer the predictable, but shrinking plan that I have in my head.   I "play small", as Williamson writes - my depression is an illness of darkness, an outward & visible reminder of the plan I live by.

So what is the answer to this ?  My sense is that the answer is "more love", as the Dixie Chicks have sung.  When Jesus is on that mountaintop, G_d proclaims Jesus his "beloved"  Later in the Jesus story, beloved becomes central to how Jesus interacts with those around him.  The dance of love emboddied in the Jesus story comes back again and again to the truth that beloved isn't having to modify yourself. Its approximately being beloved for who you in reality are.

 

walking

i like to walk.  not just as a mode of transportation.  but as an avenue for discovery.

cities are my favorite places to walk.  there is the buzz of the street, the cadence of waiting for the light to change, the noticable shifts as one neighborhood  gives way to another, then another, then another.

when I worked in San Francisco, I'd  walk most days from our office in the South of Market area to Grace Cathedral, which stands atop the highest hill in San Francisco.

there was some unique joy in walking up to this building - seeing its spire, watching it come into total recognition, entering its enormous doorway.

walking thru life can be tough.  some neighborhoods are tougher than others, some hill harder to climb.  i notice, even in the toughest of times, how much that walking leads me to thing discovered or re-discovered in my life.

reconciling with this illness

i have been struggling so far this year, feeling like it is hard to keep up.

mental illness has re-entered my life, something i still do not want to accept as part of my identity. depression + anxiety are a combo that i find myself grappling with more frequently.  it seems like the ongoing stress of my jobs, combined with getting older and being more honest with myself, brings me back to the realization that I have an illness.  one that limits me in ways that I do not easily accept.

medication helps.  strategies to ground myself help. lisa helps.  my family helps.  my friends help.

but  help can not rewire my psyche, can not undo this genetic inheritance.

i know that depression + anxiety are not all that I am, that there is so much more of me beyond this illness.

it is hard to see those corners, to see out beyond this illness.

we have been worshipping with a congregation new to us for the last several weeks.  there is some reconciliation for us in this place.  the worship gathering emphasizes communion as a sacrement of reconciliation, as a expression of mending our ragged lives, of weaving us into the communal God.

i hope for a reconciliation with this illness, that I can make peace with my limitations, that I can lay down my loss and know that even as I am, I am loved.

BACK TO SCHOOL WEEK: We plant seeds that one day will grow

In my home state, today is Parent's Day - i.e. the first day of school.  Summer is over (though the heat remains), football & other high holy days are nearing, it is a time of transition.

One of the ritual of this time of year is a "back-to-school" event for parents.  We went to one this past Saturday - 3 hours learning about where our daughter will be going to high school.  I was moved by the mission statement of her new school:

cultivate learning communities in which each and every student, parent, and staff member realizes their profound beauty, falls in love with learning, and lives with courage and authenticity

Powerful words, clearly honed over conversations & experience.  This mission statement can be counter-cultural in a world of standardized tests & fast tracks to top tier colleges.

For me, this mission statement is part of what I yearn for in the faithing of our lives.  Rather than weekly Bible studies or curricula that far too often ape the education trends of times long past, I wonder what faith communities would look like if we focused on helping one another realize our profound beauty, help one another fall in love with learning and live with courage & authenticity.  

It might not be neat & tidy, certainly would not fit in a weekly 1 hours slot, probably would not focus so much on the "sage on the stage" - but the faithing of our lives, whether we are 6 years old, 46 or 86, the faithing of our lives is about cultivation, much more than it is about planting or harvesting.

Over that past few days, I've chewed on this mission statement & my yearning for faithing our collective lives - my soul has come back to a prayer by Oscar Romero that I have found particularly nourishing:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

FYI - A number of folks are blogging about the spiritual formation of children and youth this through this week - for info, see Brian McLaren's blog.

in my dreams

image from markchadwickart

vivid        / (vĭvˈĭd)/

• Perceived as bright and distinct; brilliant: a vivid star.
  
• Having intensely bright colors: a vivid tapestry.
  
• Having a very high degree of saturation: a vivid purple.
  
• Presented in clear and striking manner: a vivid account of the incident.
  
• Perceived or felt with the freshness of immediate experience: a vivid recollection of their childhood.
  
• Active in forming lifelike images: a vivid imagination. 

In an article I devoured recently, anthropologist Pascal Boyer argued that the foundation of religion is our psychological readiness to accept vivid, memorable tales about the world around us.  Those tales may come from the sacred scriptures - stories of Eve or of creation or even of battle.  Those tales may come from the faith or family traditions that we find great affinity with - when Grandpa travelled to this country or how a certain shaman changed the life of a village.  They can just as easily come from sports or art or even just hanging out with friends.

I am fascinated by these vivid tales rising up from our dreams.  Dreams tend to ebb & flow for me in terms of my capacity to recall them.  As I have gotten older, I have begun to work harder at trying to remember them when I wake.  Some of the medication I take seems to make my dreams a bit more vivid, particularly if I wake up in the early light of the morning.  These dreams can be exhilarating, deeply moving, even sometimes frightening.  Sometimes, I feel like my most authentic self when I wake from those - other times I just wonder "what the hell did I eat that triggered that ?".

People who do research tell us that dreams are important for pulling together all the information we process on a daily basis and turning it into memories we can use later.  They have found that dreams are often a marker that the brain is working on the same problem at many levels.  From their research, they have found that the vivid nature of dreams reflects the brain’s attempt to find associations for the memories that could make them more useful in the future.

Christian scripture is filled with meaning found from dreams, lives being uprooted, even the direction of a tribe or nation changed from a dream.  In our rational, fact-based world - it seems almost ridiculous to consider dreams a source for wisdom or action.  These dreams are often counter-factual - they take real things and remix them.  But the immediacy, the intensity, the clarity - it beckons me out beyond all the models & facts & the brilliant insights.  I do not know why, but the research makes me feel a lot more assured that my dreams, vivid & non-linear as they can be, are crucial to the path I travel.

  

making exchanges

last week, i played hooky --- twice

I went to a local congregation - for a weekday Eucharist and a Sunday evening Compline gathering

over my vacation, I realized that I was feeling overdrawn - that I had deposited loads of ideas and teachings & images, with a host of debits around the liturgical markers that have been imprinted on me over 40 years.

the economic metaphors are intentional for me - part of my struggle in between trad'l & emerging faith communities is that my attention (what people thru the ages called devotion) is far too easily consumed with a rational faithing of my life, rather than the embodied gift of sacremental living.  in sermon-centric worlds, my emphasis leads to the idea "did I get it" - in liturgical setting, my own sense is that there is no it to get.

a recent article helped me a lot here - Christ and Capital: Money Changers and the Lord’s Table by  geoff holsclaw . geoff is co-pastor at Life on the Vine, as well as a doctoral student at Marquette University.

city and suburban dwellers, for texting crazed teens and overworked office managers, for over-styled moms and trying-not-to-be-too-savvy dads, the only place of worship is now within a mall crowded with devoted followers, practicing their religious exercises. Money has built its own temple, creating an idolatry and ideology with its own power and piety. For Philip Goodchild, a British theologian and philosopher, money does not merely facilitate the exchange of goods, but also “demands and shapes time, attention, and devotion” by replacing all previous social orders with its own values and commands (Buy! Sell! Borrow! Lend!), becoming the new god of our times. Because money promises the world (of goods) but only delivers itself, money rises up as a rival to theology by declaring an alternative faith, a faith in money involving a metaphysics, a politics, an ethics, and a theology

there was a moment in the Compline gathering where a sense of reciprocity of gift and return clicked for me.  a thurifer walked the aisles, as ~20 strangers stood after twilight in a must sanctuary.  a woman sung these words:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or
weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who
sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless
the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the
joyous; and all for your love's sake

that is a world out beyond ideas, as rumi would say, out beyond deconstruction & re-imaging.  a world where grace is freely given, where healing & comfort lavished, where everything is for love's sake.

i suspect some of this is neuro-science, that my soul is habituated to tuwn to common prayer, when the shopping mall model of faith leaves me ready to make an exchange.  but for that odd group gathered around a table, there was an alternative economy.

God is good...all the time. And all the time...God is good

most of you who read this blog do not know Kester or Rachel Smith.  they are both what we call here in texas "good people".

Something terrible, truly tragic happened to them last night.

God is good...all the time. And all the time...God is good

In Pakistan, a country that stands at the epicenter of terror, a flood threatens more than 3.5 million children.  Aid agencies are struggling to get funds for millions of Pakistan flood victims because the country suffers from an "image deficit".

God is good...all the time. And all the time...God is good

In his book The Promise of Paradox, Parker Palmer writes:

Contradiction, paradox, the tension of opposites: these have always been at the heart of my experience, and I think I am not alone. I am tugged one way and then the other. My beliefs and my actions often seem at odds. My strengths are sometimes canceled by my weaknesses. My self, and the world around me, seem more a study in dissonance than a harmony of the integrated whole

beauty in the midst of bad, bad stuff.  bad, bad stuff happening randomly.  joy emerges when there is no real reason why.

God is good...all the time. And all the time...God is good

life at the twilight

The prospect of death provides a POV that cracks open the distractions of rational, modern life. 

2 recent pieces of transcendent writing captures this for me.

In a piece in the New York, Atul Gawande writes about the complexity of What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?:

Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.”

Yesterday, Roger Ebert wrote from his own experience about the faith that sometime accompanies this twilight of life:

I worship the void. The mystery. And the ability of our human minds to perceive an unanswerable mystery. To reduce such a thing to simplistic names is an insult to it, and to our intelligence.

ladies & germs...presenting lawrence (rimshot)

if you are a person who follows the church year & the heroes that are celebrated, then today is...sorta funny.  intentionally so.

on august 10, one of the hottest days in the northern portion of the earth, one of the church's earliest martyrs is remembered.  Stories passed down for almost 2,000 years hold that Lawrence was burned or "grilled" to death, hence his association with the gridiron. Tradition also holds that Lawrence joked about their cooking him enough to eat while he was burning on the gridiron,  stating something along the lines of

"turn me over...I'm done on this side"

It is no surprise that this made Lawrence a hero to many cooks....and to many comics.

for me, comedy is divine.  the ectasy of laughing.  the art of a well-told joke.  the anticipation of a punchline.  it can be stupid, juvenile humor, high end parody or even something as basic as a "knock knock" joke.  i love to laugh, to make people laugh, to watch other people making other people laugh.

when I went to seminary, I always wished we could spend a class on this manifesto:

what comes after do not be afraid ?

i have been more aware of fear over the last few years of my life.  

in my 20s & 30s, I spent a lot of energy keeping fear at bay, like some counterinsurgency battle in the wilds of the some war-torn area.  the crackle of fire hummed like a radio buzzer---me, still trying to be asleep, looking to hit snooze.  or the pull the damn pout of the cord out of the wall.

as a teenager, I know fear like I knew the alphabet.  I could watch the sentences of fear assemble - when my Dad seemed to fade in & out of life.  it seemed like there was no key to decipher the transmissions - I had stumbled on a receiver that played fear 24/7.

right now, it is like an electrical current in me.  I often wonder if I will spend all my life with fear as a traveling partner.

the holy writings of the tradition that I follow include what seems like a key - the phrase do not be afraid is said to be found 365 times.  in so many different contexts, the Holy One shows up, we are filled with fear and that Holy One says do not be afraid.

ok.

got it.

how what ?

a note to the universe: please change my status from vulnerable

/ (vŭlˈnər-ə-bəl)/

1. capable of being wounded or hurt
2. susceptible to criticism or persuasion or temptation
3. susceptible to attack

I have been vulnerable a lot recently.

I do not like this.

I REALLY do not like this.

I feel the pull to man up, to take care of what needs to be taken care of, to protect and repeal all risk and danger.

I prefer the numbing buzz of stuff to do & things I know - the vuvuzela of modern life that pushes out most of my awareness, consumes so much of my attention that the susceptibility is just outside of my vision. 

It confuses me that so many stories of holiness take place in the shaky camera view of vulnerability, that David wrote all those songs and that Julian was enthralled with the vulnerabilities that seemed to consume her.

this is not the operating system that came with my life, it is not the worldview I was bathed in, it is not the race we rats run.

when I think back to the rare stretches of time I spent with my Dad before he passed on, I remember just how vulnerable it seemed, like that sound of CRACK just before the awareness of something breaking unfolds.  honestly, that musty stench of vulnerability hung all around my Dad, so much so I avoided it for more than 30 years.

my status seems stuck on vulnerable.  I'd like it changed to having it all together, all perfectly put together, even if that is pretend. 

I prefer the pretend to the vulnerable.

out of time

i've had some odd experiences of time over the last few days.

the odd-ness of hospital time.  waiting for the doc, waiting for lab results, waiting to see how long we wait.

the richness of unplanned time with family.  stretches of being together, doing stuff that is so normal & so precious.

for the last year, I spent a lot of my life constrained by time, like I was in a suit 2 sizes too small. sometimes, I'd feel like I was gasping for time, other times racing a locomotive of time.

in my immediate family, I am the only person who wears a watch.  no big deal, but I am often aware of time and the counting of it.

it is a gift to be out of time for a while

be part of passion play

yesterday, i took part in a passion play.  

a lark.

a pilgrimage - to a BBQ joint in Luling, Texas.

in the middle of the week, in the middle of a work day when we all could have been doing something productive or efficient.

after 2 hours of eating & talking & laughing, here is what I had to show for it

 

BBQ is something I have a passion for. pop culture is another thing.  music as well.  friendships are a passion I am finally living out

passion is defined by Wordnik as

passion is something I rarely play at.  I harness passion, I tame it, I domesticate.  that ardent love becomes fodder for making stuff happen.

to use a startup term, I monetize my passion.

that feels horrible to type - it looks disgusting to read.

there is a lyric from a william fitzsimmons song that I have been playing on repeat in my head:

i just want a small part in your passion play

do you hear when i call
in the midst of wrong?
do you hear these here words
while i sing this song?
are you caught up in me
like i heard you say?
or just some big cashier
that i'll have to pay

it is a joy to be a small part in people's passion play - my wife and family, my friends, even folks who paths cross mine.  my enthusiasm - no longer only bound, tied to some big cashier.

a passion play.

us is where my faith lives

someone asked me a while back what I really had faith in - what is past all the words and the opinions, what surfaces at moments of exquisite joy or pain that cuts deep. not what I say or what I claim - not all those distractions or battles or false choices.

what do I have faith in is.

us.

it is really that simple.

us is where my faith lives.

in the lovers' caress after some fight or long night.

in a meeting where recovery is reclaimed after a fall.

in a fight or argument where the topic is secondary to the flash that entangles us.

in a lineage that goes back & forward, side to side, raining down from a cloud if witnesses whose experiences & discoveries are a current that carries us along.

in a truly unique work of storytelling - LOST - where the finale reminds us that  "The hero is the community, the living together."

in a community of faith where life weaves us together, an unlikely communion, grace made visible & present in spite of, not because of.

in a family where edges & scars make the mosaic rich & pulsing.

us.

what ever God is, God is the connective membrane, the tether, the path, the root structure.

God does not come into us - God is us, hands held, limbs entangled.

God is the network - we boot to God, not locally - what I know is thrown in with everyone else, in some stew where the smells & tastes are far beyond any one contribution.

God let me trust you.....

here is the deal.  

i have 2 ends to my trust continuum.

none.  or blind.

i either do not trust you or it or them.

or I trust you blindly.

i start with the NO TRUST setting most of the time.

then occasionally, i toggle over to blind trust.

trust is the relational part of faith -  believing people, giving them slack, going with them.

most of the time, I do not trust God.

I want to bound God, tame God, hold God to my definitions & expectations.

i do not trust God in the NOW - instead I stay with my yesterday wrongs or my tomorrow worries.

every once in a while, I let myself realize where this not trusting God gets me - and then I hear these words from Yo Yo Ma deeply in my soul (hat tip to Kester Smith):

Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there's got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you're at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together. 

moving from the house of fear to the house of love

we live here.  it's either the 7th or 8th house we've owned - it's probably the 17th house I've lived in during my 46 years.  i like this house - our family & friends have made it a home.

i've have been thinking some about houses, triggered by a quote from Henri Nouwen.  he frames the Jesus story as one that beckons us to move "from the house of fear into the house of love".

i confess I know the house of fear all too well.  it is a place my mind wanders to, that my heart struggles not to make a home in.  there are so many rooms in the house of fear, places that fit within one another like Russian nesting dolls.

i have noticed that my path to this house of fear is well worn - at times, it seems I run there before I even have experienced something.  my instinct to run to this path is almost hard wired - I am constantly pinging my environment in search of fear, almost addicted to the stimulus that fear provides.

this house of fear is not a home - it is a way station to destinations that are often destructive, a bus terminal that directs me to places that offer black/white solutions and fast food sustenance.

moving towards the house of love is not how my brain reacts, it is not how my knowledge moves.  moving towards the house of love demands a shift, an unlearning, a recognition that there is enough, that I am beloved, that we are connected, that today is where life is being born.

there is a U2 song, an obscure one called drowning man that has a lyric that helps me imagine what moving towards the house of love can be like:

take my hand, you know I'll be there if you can, I'll cross the sky for your love and give you what I hold dear

the path to this casa di amore is traveled together, with a friend or lover offering a hand to hold when the instinct to bolt to the house of fear arises.  i yearn to accept this gift, to relearn at my soul level the love that moves me and holds me and nourishes us all.

more than just a weekend

wow - what an incredible weekend. 

our oldest daughter graduated from Occidental College, along with ~400 other seniors. 

our youngest daughter celebrated her 14th birthday, with friends Thurs then with family while we were in LA for her big sister's graduation.

it was a living testament to the family Lisa & I are blessed to be among.

my dad struggled to be present in our family, even before my parents split.  I never asked him why - wish I had - but I can vividly remember the visceral discomfort he had in family settings.  I carry that with me now, as well a bit of confusion about what a Dad does in daily life.

I am fortunate  to have 3 great teachers.  There is no parent more extraordinary than Lisa - she loves with every part of her being, she is present and she believes with a determination that is breath-taking.  Though it may sound funny, my best teachers have been our girls - Mary & Katie have taught me so much about what a Dad is and what being in a family is all about.

this weekend was a mile marker - hopes achieved, goals surpassed, strong relationships recognized.  I do not hold these lightly - they are more valuable than any job, more important than any deadline.  Families are a dense series of living roots, ever moving & growing, shifting the ground they are placed in. 

I can not remember a time in my life when I felt luckier than this weekend.

Mary Graduates from Oxy This Sunday !

 

We are headed to Eagle Rock this weekend to celebrate Mary graduating from Occidental College !

#1b1t: in a world with its own sense of logic

 

the Twitter conversation around American Gods continues to be almost more fascinating than re-reading the book.  Neil Gaiman has now gotten into the conversation.

there is a quote in chapter 4 that captures so much of what communities and worlds can be like:

"I feel", Shadow told her, "like I'm in a world with its own sense of logic.  It own set of rules.  Like when you're in a dream, and you know there are rules you mustn't break.  Even if you don't know what they mean."

in search of graceful failure ~ turning towards resiliency & vulnerability

Patrick Meier keeps a spectacular blog called iRevolution.  A few weeks back, he had this great post Failing Gracefully in Complex Systems: A Note on Resilience - that has this quote from the scholar Thomas Homer-Dixon about  "the middle ground between dangerous rigidity and catastrophic collapse":

In our organizations, social and political systems, and individual lives, we need to create the possibility for what computer programmers and disaster planners call ‘graceful’ failure. When a system fails gracefully, damage is limited, and options for recovery are preserved. Also, the part of the system that has been damaged recovers by drawing resources and information from undamaged parts.

Breakdown is probably something that human social systems must go through to adapt successfully to changing conditions over the long term. But if we want to have any control over our direction in breakdown’s aftermath, we must keep breakdown constrained. Reducing as much as we can the force of underlying tectonic stresses helps, as does making our societies more resilient. We have to do other things too, and advance planning for breakdown is undoubtedly the most important.

Our world feels littered with catastrophic collapse - from institutions like the Catholic church to natural disasters to a world economy built on things that ended up being a bit too derivative.

My own interior life has its own share of dangerous rigidity and collapse that feels catastrophic.  I am a pack rat in the house of fear I have built, brick by brick - I have my own failures categorized and filed away so I can find them whenever the mode strikes.  I cling to models of rigid rights & wrongs - I too often mistake silent decay or transition for collapse.

I can see this ability to build resiliency, to weave together into communities, to strive for integration rather than perfect.  No rigid pillars, no collapse that ruins all - rather, a path to a graceful failure, one that does not tear at the fabric of our identity.

I am been sitting with these ideas of graceful failure, of resiliency as I have listened a few time to David Whyte from his talk Being at the Frontier of Your Identity (available as a free podcast on iTunes):

You have to enunciate the exact nature of your exile…

find the ground of your own attentiveness to the rest of the world…

It is frightening to do this because as soon as that true presence makes itself known, enormous parts of you are going to disappear, die, fall away…

But at the same time, everything you are doing or not doing suddenly makes sense, [including an appreciation of] what is standing in the way of your real life…

You must turn towards your vulnerability…

And remember: There is no path that goes all the way.

frum: the mainstream media distinction is dead

In this quote from David Frum (hat tip: Mike Hudak), the shift away from a single gatekeeper to a world of small, loosely connected gates is laid bare.  Frum's context is media & politics - you could just as easily use this to describe mainstream religion, civic organizations, even legacy media.

In many ways, we are in the early early stages of these tectonic shifts, with very few norms or standard conventions.  I suspect the gatekeepers will not go quietly into their night - that we will see an attempt to shove the genie as far back into the bottle as she will fit.