Gardening Towards the Two Greatest Commandments

"The getting dirty of our hands is a mutual action between us and Christ, for as we respond to the invitation to dig ourselves deep into the soil of his love, he also responds to our invitation to dig his hands deep into the smelly, dirty spaces of the soil of our own hearts. And as he models for us, in our lives, the turning over of the soil of our hearts, then we, too, learn how to respond to the invitations of others when they need folk to help them till the soil of their heart. It is in the mutual digging in the dirt between us and Jesus and others that we start (hopefully) to understand what it means to love God with everything that we are and to love our neighbors as ourself."

80% Angel, 10% Demon, and the Rest is Hard to Explain

Let me put this right out there; I am no big fan of total depravity. To be honest, I think it's crap; although, that's not a strong enough word. Yet, depravity isn't something I often think about either. Sin? You guessed it; it registers at about a 2 on my thought scale. Yet, for the past few weeks, I have been grossly confronted with the reality of the broken mess that is this world and that is my life in the midst of that broken world. And my reaction to that brokenness? Prayer...worship...at first, yes, but when the smoke settled and the stress reared its ugly head, I found myself to be severely lacking in any kind of decent response. If part of this relationship with God thing is call and response, I heard the call and shouted out a great big "Fuck you" in response. Was I angry? Yeah, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Granted, it's not God's fault; we live in a severely broken world, and our lives are beautiful, fucked up messes. That's the reality I seem to live in; that's the reality I seem to see all around me living in downtown Edmonton. It is a beautiful city; on my best day, I can totally see the hand of God all over the place; on my worst days, I find myself whispering just to feel his breath on my neck in the winds that pass through the streets.

When I pause, when I take that deep breath, I find myself wanting to just be human. Fully human, granted, but I'm not too hyped up on the "spiritual" stuff. Does God speak to me? I don't know, really. If so, it's not some ethereal voice in the back of my head. It's usually in the smile of some kid running down the street or in the voice of my wife when I pick her up from work; maybe in the Facebook wall post from Maria telling me about the Wunchie in Kentucky, or that email from Rudy and David detailing God's faithfulness in their lives, or in the tears of a trusted friend pouring his heart out about his own deep brokenness. I don't see angels, at least not that I'm aware of; I see evil, but that's as obvious as the nose on my face. It's written all over the streets and thrown up in the gutters of our cities; it's the waste of our fucked up greed as human beings trying to consume each other as fast as is possible. We are a greedy, cannibalistic creature. And desperately in need of Jesus.

I have been reminded these past few weeks of just how desperately I still need to be saved. I refused a guy a couple of bucks today and felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest; I felt like I'd just given the finger to Jesus. I screamed at a friend over the phone this afternoon; I was so deeply angry and just reacted. I have been reminded of the depths of my own brokenness.

I see my brokenness in my rear view mirror; I see brokenness in the eyes of friends; and I remember a song that says, "The last time I saw Jesus, I was drinking bloody marys." That's the Jesus I want because that's who I see in the gospels; that's the Jesus I want to reflect in my rearview mirror and see in the tears of friends and in the shit and filth of our cities, towns, and rural centers. Give me an earthy Jesus, drinking bloody marys and smoking Camels on 95th ave. I want an orientation that looks down and sees myself in the face of the homeless; I want to be reminded that I, too, am still deeply in need of the grace of the cross to enter this beautiful fucked up mess of my life. You can keep your pie in the sky. I just want to answer the call to come and die.

Inhale...
"Hey, Jesus! pass the celery."
"Yeah, Dan, here you go. Love you bro."
"Yeah, Jesus, I love you too."
...exhale.

Grasping for God

During the past few months that Jeanine and I have been living in Canada, we have seen the hand of God at work time and time and time again. Not every work has been the same; neither has every work been of the same magnitude, yet, we continue to watch as the providing and redeeming work of God is made manifest in our lives.

I hate cliches, deeply do I hate them, yet I must admit that sometimes they get a point across that, otherwise, would not be communicated. So, to use a cliche that I spoke to a friend today. I, honestly, do not understand how people suffer through the difficulties of life apart from Christ. I get it on the other side, definitely. The grace of God covers all people in all of creation and, whether they are aware or not, God carries them through because of the depths of his love for them. To be aware of this, however, most often times brings me to a place of speechlessness.

As Jeanine and I continue to walk with Jesus through our life, as we watch the Father's love poured into our lives through friends and as we continue to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to try and do the same for others, I am deeply and utterly coming to the conclusion that the words that I know are vastly insufficient to describe the great mystery Who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I do not know what to do with this, except maybe to simply sit in the realization of it. It totally messes with my intellectual side, which I am coming to accept more and more as the Lord intertwining my heart and my mind. It is leading me to the place of humility where I am free to utter quietly, "I do not know." And, you know what? That's okay.

I continue to yearn for the intertwining of my enormous, beautiful heart and my mind, so that the thoughts that I think are ones that have been renewed, are ones that burst with the brilliance of the Spirit's creativity from deep within the wells of my heart, and ones that help others to grasp, with me, for the amazing goodness of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Importance of Ritual

"I've discovered, in my life as a tribal person, that rituals ground you. They don't need to be elaborate in their solemnity or deeply devotional in their application to affect you that way. No matter how slight or insignificant, rituals connect you to the people you share your home and your planet with. They allow you the freedom to breathe...When you gather with others for the sublime purpose of being together, the strength of that ritual binds you, shapes you, maybe even saves you. I learned that as a foster home kid, and rituals still hold that charm and power. We're tribal people, the whole magnificent lot of us, and we shine brightest when we honour the rituals that join us." From "One Native Life" by Richard Wagamese

Insight from Bonhoeffer

I read this today and sent it off to some friends as encouragement. This little ditty really helps me to see that my struggles with reading Scripture, or not reading Scripture as the case may be, is not really something to get all bent out of shape over.

"I am going through another spell of finding it difficult to read the Bible. I never know quite what to make of it. I don't feel guilty at all about it and I know it won't be long before I return to it again with renewed zest. Is it just a psychological process? I am almost inclined to think so...True, there is always a danger of indolence (avoidance, laziness), but it would be wrong to get fussed about it. Far better to trust that after wobbling a bit the compass will come to rest in the right direction." - Letters from Prison

Where Nothing is Hidden

The section of my brain that creates my words,
without leaving a note, left for the day.
I am left with mediocre phrases
to describe the slow rate of my decay.
I cannot spiral down into deep sleep;
so I slip into this melancholy
where love, joy, and happiness are suppressed
and I am eye to eye with my follies.
I am blue; I am Somber; I am wretched.
I am empty, out of order, yet vain,
I primp so that I might prostitute me
to the bidder with the lowest restraint.
I am desperate and alone and revealed,
for in light like this, nothing is concealed.

Pledging Allegiance Mindlessly

You know, I feel sorry for some words in the English vocabulary. They get used, abused, trashed, recycled, whored out, sold, bought, put on the shelf; they evolve, devolve, change, expand, decrease; I think, sometimes that, if I were a word, I would simply want someone to erase me.

This is, lately, how I feel about the word "community." EVERYONE is using it, and it would appear that no one really knows what the hell they're talking about. And most of the people who don't talk about it are actually the exemplars of what the word might just be getting at. Granted, I'm going to go ahead and abuse the word by placing my own adjective on it, by admitting that I'm talking about "christian" community. And I do so, simply because this is the context in which I exist. [See, I just did it. Poor, poor word.]

It is so hip these days to call small gatherings of human beings "community." Yet, it's like we take the word, absolutely empty it of meaning, and attach it to situations where we have absolutely no commitment to one another. Least of all, commitment to try and work with those in that small group to organize something meaningful. It's as though the Christian world has mindlessly pledged allegiance to a word raped of any meaning in order to be culturally relevant; it's like mindlessly pledging allegiance to a flag.

I sound like the vocabulary police. That's not my intention; I just want people to put their feet, their money, and their commitments where their loose tongues are.

Admittedly, I really want something because I have experienced something real. I want meaningful, committed, intimate relationships with other human beings. My need is to be around other people who take seriously what it means to be engaged in Scripture in such a way that the very story of our lives becomes defined by the story of God at work in salvation history. I deeply need to be around people who challenge me to perceive God in a different way, yet in a way that they can articulate through Scripture, and not some mamby-pamby pretty philosophical idea of an all-tolerant God who sits back and speaks daisies into existence all day long. I am absolutely, 100%, fucking tired of people who are okay to be biblically illiterate and allow others to do their theological thinking for them. Shit, I might as well go be a pastor at a mega-church where I can make $60K a year doing other peoples' thinking for them.

Somedays, I just want to throw my hands up, say "Fuck it all," and go back to Lexington with Jeanine. Part of that is feeling sorry for myself because no one seems to want to listen to our experiences with community, but other parts of it have to do with the deeply unmet needs I feel to jump in the car and head over to Akers drive or the High Street House. Who the hell really asks, "Should we use Scripture while we're thinking about this Christian community thing?" REALLY!?!?! Fucking really!?!?! Is that really a question people ask? It's Scripture, for God's sake! The story of God's salvation history in and through humanity! Are Christians coming up with these questions by themselves?! Or have they had such bad experiences with other "bible studies" that they want their "experiences" with Jesus to be the balancing rod of their lives? I pray that there will come a day when I won't be surprised at things like this, but I am surprised at how little the groups Jeanine and I run in, and many of them are "Christian," have very little, if any, interaction with Scripture. Even the small group from church we attend. I'm tired, and it may be cowardly, but today, I want to go back home. I miss our Communality family, very very deeply.

Restoration through Charity (Love)

It is obvious, if I am not mistaken, that just as human pride, by departing from the supreme good not by a footstep but by the mind's attachment and becoming decrepit in itself, disfigured God's image in itself; so human humility, by approaching God by the spirit's attachment, is restored to the image of the Creator. Hence the apostle says: "Be renewed in the spirt of your mind and put on the new man, who was created according to God." But how will this renewal come about except by the new precept of charity of which the Savior says "I give you a new commandment." Then, if the mind puts on this charity perfectly, charity will straightway reform the other two, namely, memory and knowledge, which we said were equally disfigured. A summary of this one precept, then, is presented to us in a very salutary way; it contains the divesting of the old man, the renewal of his mind and the reforming of the divine image. - Aelred of Rievaulx, "The Way of Friendship"

Surfing Through Disappointment

Disappointment is a strange emotion for me. Primarily because I rarely admit that I actually get disappointed. I like to take pride in the fact that I'm pretty laid back, that change, whether slow or quick, doesn't particularly jostle the day to day flow that my life takes. As long as I have my morning coffee, some breakfast, clothes to put on, and a house to walk out of, I'm typically pretty good to go.
So, why the all-of-a-sudden waterfall of disappointment? Probably because it's not that I fail to admit it; it's because I flat out ignore it. I don't really know how to deal with disappointment. And the core disappointment that I seem to have is this deep disappointment with God that I have regarding the fact that he has taken me as far away from any opportunity to surf as I ever imagined he would. Granted, at each point of movement, I said, "Okay." Sometimes I argued or complained but never knew how to deal with disappointment in regard to obeying God or thinking that obedience was what I was doing. Each step that took me farther and farther away from the coast seemed to take me further and further away from that one place where I connect with the Trinity and with creation in the deepest way for me.
Jesus once told a rich young man that if he wanted to inherit eternal life, he'd have to sell all he had, give it away, then follow him. Later, this conversation occurs: Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you." "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age - homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, and with them persecutions- and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Mark 10:28-31).
I am hoping that, sooner than later, I will be able to experience, once again, the clean faces of waves rolling under me in warm water on a sunny day. That some time soon I will be able to stand again, driven by the very power of the earth on a 9ft piece of fiberglass on deep blue salt water. That one day soon, in this lifetime, I will experience surfing again as it is returned to me - my center, the place where I find the holy of holies, that place where I am always renewed and where I always find Jesus.