Dead Coffee

O LORD, the hope of Israel, All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the LORD. (Jer 17:13 NAU)

I'm sitting in the middle of Panera with about 5 thousand people at lunchtime.  The smell of pastries and bread mix with the caramel and chocolate walls and I'm suddenly haunted by the feeling that I'm just another nut staring out the window of a giant Snicker's bar.  Two booths down a couple of post-soccer mom women are talking animatedly about church and just across the room a pretty young woman has been working for half an hour on a giant crossword book with "EASY" printed in large bold letters on the cover.  In the sea of white people here in Iowa, the black gentleman with the earring bussing tables sticks out and I wonder if there is something racist in the air  as I find myself thinking that he looks like the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish would look today.  Then I remember that Darius Rucker is playing the country music scene these days.

Now the church ladies and the crossword aficionado have disappeared and their booths are empty.  There is a college student with a book titled The History of Western Civilization writing a paper in the booth next to mine; she is drinking something that looks like lemonade.  I hate lemonade, but I think about striking up a conversation because of my own interest the development of Western history.  The thought lasts about a millisecond before I realize that she is almost certainly taking an introductory course at the local community college and couldn't really give two cents about Western Civilization.  More importantly, in our sex saturated culture she would probably think I'm hitting on her.

A prom king and queen walk through the door as I refill my coffee, followed by a matriarch with her daughter and two grandchildren.  What I should be thinking is how this place is an example of multi-generational appeal.  I should be thinking how awesome it would be to have a coffee shop in our church.  I ought to be appreciating the fact that so many diverse people can coexist here, even that suburban dad wearing the St. Louis Cardinals ball cap while the brightly colored flame tattoo burns up his left leg.

But I'm not thinking those things.  I'm thinking that I want to scream out something offensive.  I'm thinking that while I am sitting here politely sipping my coffee and listening to Maroon 5, that we're all stuck in some kind of post-REM sleepy haze.  I can't shake the feeling that what we desperately need is to wake up and face reality instead of whatever this is.

An Indian man and a slim black woman enter and leave while I type the last paragraph.  I'm probably wrong.  Maybe we need this.  Maybe we need a few brief diversions from our dysfunctional families, work addictions, relational problems and omens of financial disaster.

A bearded young neo-hipster with Buddy Holly glasses joins Darius Rucker in emptying the garbage cans as  a post-adolescent girl walks casually to a seat in my row carrying a salad in a bright white bowl so big she could wear it as a hat.  The clink of coffee cups and the scraping of silverware signal that the lunch hour and this brief illusion of tranquility and television quality normality are almost over.  Life has to be spent somewhere, maybe we should just cherish the moments that aren't spent in anxiety.  I just can't for the life of me figure out why this is all so appealing and at the same time offensive.

I'm just struck by the thought that maybe we're all taking sedatives instead of the antidote.  Maybe instead of coffee, we should be drinking living water.

Diversion

"...one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead..." (Philippians 3:13 NAU)

I should really be writing a paper, but I'm not.  I'm sitting here listening to the new album from Smashing Pumpkins:  Oceania.  I'm not really thinking about the new album though.  I'm thinking about how much it hurts not to be who I was when I first listened to Smashing Pumpkins.  I'm wishing I could go back in time and be that guy again.

I don't miss everything about that guy.  He could be a real ass at times.  I guess some things never change.  But I miss his confidence.  I miss his dreams and his hopes and his conviction that the world was wide and anything could happen.  That guy could handle anything the world could throw at him.  He was fearless.

He was fearless because he had nothing to lose.  He was not responsible for raising children or their college education.  He was not responsible for aging parents in the autumn of life.  He didn't give a $#!% (that's him talking, not me) about what people thought about him.  (He really did care, by the way, he just wouldn't admit it.) 

He didn't worry about what would happen if he believed things people told him not to.  He didn't worry about asking the wrong questions or what would happen if - God forbid - he actually got the answers.  He didn't worry about whether his words could destroy people.  He didn't worry about the mess of ethical consequences for every. single. decision. he made.  He didn't lay awake at night wondering if he was committing career suicide or that someday the people he loved would hate him, or whether he would die broke and all alone.  He didn't know enough to worry.  If only I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

He was scared to death about hell.  I remember that.  I might be able to ease his mind a little there.

Paul's passage in Philippians 3 is NOT Paul's emancipation from his sordid past.  That's a wonderful sentiment, and he had probably fought that battle as well.  But Philippians 3 is about setting aside the confidence (in the flesh) he had earned by his stellar (Jewish) religious past - and cultivating a similar attitude in those to whom he was writing.  Still, I think there's something bigger in this idea of "forgetting what is behind" and "reaching for what's ahead."

The thing about time is that it only goes one way.  I am not that guy I used to be.  I think I carry him around with me sometimes, but I will never be him again.  That's not God's design.  We are moving forward.  Not backward.  The past is a door that is always closed.  We can spend all our time chopping and prying at it, but it will never open up again.  The future is always an open door, but the lights are always off in there until we can get inside and hit the switch.  The present, however, is always where we are.  Here we can look around and explore, get to know the people stuck here with us, read a book, share a few drinks and make peace with the past... before moving on.

And I think it's about time we did exactly that.  Time to be moving on.  I think I might buy this album.  Me and Billy Corgan are both going somewhere.  It's true, that door up ahead is dark and a little bit scary, but it's bound to get boring if we hang around here too long.  Oh, but, after you...

Musings About Nothing

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. (Rom 8:24-25 NAU)

Sometimes there's this feeling of hopelessness that settles over a person.  It's heavy and bleak and threatens to smother you like a soaking wet blanket of black nothingness.  But it's not real.  Not really.  The feeling is real.  The situations that bring the feeling are real.  But hopelessness isn't real.

Somewhere, I recall Augustine saying that evil is just the absence of good.  Like darkness is the absence of light. It's not a real thing.  It's the experience of not having present access to the thing  That's what hopelessness is, if you think about it.  It's really nothing.

That's important to remember because hope is always there.  Light is always there too, sometimes it's out of sight, or hidden from view or on the other side of a relentless, thick wall of rock or steel.  Sometimes it's a million miles away, in another galaxy even.  But it's always there, even if it's not here.  Hopelessness can't be unless hope is.

What's stranger, hope isn't really hope unless certainty is absent.  I have often heard people say that they know God is [insert pious observation here].  I've never understood it.  I've sat sweating in fear as the altar call rolled across the pews full of throbbing guilty consciences , "Do you know for certain that if you died tonight, you would go to heaven?"

Here's the thing.  Nobody knows anything for certain.  It may sound mean, but it's just a fact.  Worse still, it's scripture.  "In hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope."  You can have trust.  You can have confident assurance.  You can even have a warm fuzzy feeling way down in the depths of whatever that thing is people stubbornly and wrongly call their heart (at least there's something visceral in the KJV calling it the "bowels").  But the one thing you absolutely do not have is certainty.  No matter how many times you tell yourself or anybody else.

If you have certainty, you are hopeless.  That's a rather dismal and confusing thought.  Let it be.

But hopelessness isn't real, because hope is never not there.  Jesus is hope.  Even when it feels like the world is a black hole sucking away every bit of hope it gets close to, Jesus is that star blinking and burning in the distance.  Drawing.  Inspiring.  Calling.  Reminding us that the darkness hasn't won.  Can't win.  Can't even really be.

Sometimes I set aside all this scientific prattling that has lodged itself in my brain, and I wonder.  I wonder if maybe we could punch through that great black film of space, we might find on the other side a world of pulsing pure light and hope.  Maybe some day I'll find out.

Voice

I have a voice.  One in a million.  One in 7 billion.  One voice that wants to be heard.  That wants to be remembered.  Remembered for being something more than dust and blood and bits of memory.  One voice afraid of being lost in the fray.  One voice afraid of the silence that waits somewhere in the distant darkness of the future.  One voice afraid of speaking.  Afraid of what I will say.  Autophobic.  Afraid of myself.  Afraid of the consequences of Being.  Being a voice.

God has a voice.  One.  Voice.  He is word.  Word.  He is all that can be said.

I am an echo.  A reverberation falling on stones.  A distortion of Word.  I am feedback.  A steady hum.

Let Word cancel out noise.  Let Voice speak in silence.

Best. Cartoon. Ever.

I hijacked this absolutely amazing cartoon from the St Genesius Blog.

The cartoon was accompanied by an amazing prayer, the Litany of Humility. A prayer that most theologians, pastors and leaders (especially myself) should memorize by heart. Never heard of St. Genesius?

Aside from Jesus, no man I have never met has had greater spiritual influence on me than C S Lewis. In fact, I think it safe to say simply that no man aside from Jesus has a greater spiritual influence on me. The amusing part is, I'm sure he would disapprove of anyone making that statement.

I ripped this quote directly off of goodreads.com. It was worth it. Excellent and honest book, by the way, recommended. (Update 3/4/12: I fixed the typo that goodreads let through.)

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.

If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.'

It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Heretical

I just listened to one of my seminary professors insinuate that confrontation of heresy is one of the most important roles of the Christian community today. I coughed. I cursed. Then I suffered through the rest of the lecture like an obedient and graduation-pursuing student. I hate the feeling of nausea I'm experiencing because of it.

There are things that we can say about God that are wrong. There are things we can say about God that are inappropriate. In fact, I think most people (especially theologians and preachers) spend a significant amount of time and breath doing both. Myself included. However, the heresy-burning mindset that pervades some Evangelical groups just... well... burns me up.

No, they don't really want to burn anyone. I know that. However, having been on the receiving end of "heretical" accusations, I know that it feels like they might as well be lighting you on fire. I know what it's like to lose a position in the church because a small subset of people think you "believe the wrong things." I know what it's like to be amputated from the community of brothers and sisters you have lived with and beside for years and lose (nearly) all those relationships.

We no longer live in the world of the Church Fathers. There is no governing church (unless you are Catholic) who can render rulings on Orthodoxy. In fact, I question whether there ever truly was any real such authority to begin with besides Christ himself. The apostles were not divine men, they were men who had an encounter with the divine. It doesn't take a great deal of reading through Scripture to discover that they weren't flawless.

The view of authority that demands that one source can contain all the right answers is flawed. Jesus exposed it as flawed when he confronted the Jewish authorities of his day. I wonder if he might confront the authorities of the church today.

We all believe things about God. Some of those things are true. Some of them aren't. But a survey of church history can tell you that is not infrequently the "heretics" (cough, the Reformers and the Alexandrians) who have been the catalysts for positive and Godly change in the world.

So, unless the guy you've labeled a heretic is telling you that Jesus is a jelly doughnut or that God is - quite literally - dead, take the time to listen to him before flicking your metaphorical Bic. You may find that - even if you disagree with them - they might have some points you need to consider. You may even find that the icon of orthodoxy you've been clinging to all this time is just another fractured fairy tale.