Finnegan Begin Again

Life flows in seasons.  They are somewhat predictable, summer, winter, spring, fall.  Childhood, adolescence, young adult, middle age, senior citizen.  You know it is coming, you can expect each season to bring its own branding iron, leaving a mark that in some way, insignificant or mind blowing, impacts the travelers as they journey on.  Stories repeat, you begin to hear the same elements in the words that are spoken to and around you, it begins to be comfortable and even natural.

Then something changes.  Its not the season so much as the traveler.  One day you wake up and your skin doesn't fit any more.  A lot of tugging, adjusting, wiggling, ignoring, covering up, and decorating takes place trying to make your skin feel like it did just the night before.  But it doesn't.  There is a season of denial, an expectation that your skin is just on vacation and in a day or two at most, you will wake up and it will all feel normal again.  Then comes anger, frustration, resentment, fear.  Tug, tug, tug.  One day you wake up and look at yourself and discover there are a few places where you can see that you like some of the new skin you are in.  In a few spots, it might even be better skin than you had before.   It even feels a little, you know, good in places.  More time passes, a season or two, and you really can't imagine how you ever lived without the skin you are in now.

Then something changes.  Why?  Is this journey really about seasons, learning to love your skin, embracing the journey, or perhaps even learning to grieve loss?  Is God leading us on, over, around, through?  Are we being stretched, shrunk, dry cleaned, enlarged or expanded?  In the moments of sheer panic and overwhelming fear, are we learning free fall, or fully relying on God, or are we just so plaguing slow that we don't get that this same old comfortable skin wasn't meant to get us through the whole journey?

Yeah, and one more question.  If this is the way we were meant to grow in grace and love with God and others,why is it that we don't recognize  the symptoms in our fellow travelers?  Why don't we help one another recognize that it is simply time to begin again?  Why, after so many pilgrims have made this journey, are we still discovering anew, sometimes in isolated misery, that we don't call the shots on this trip?  We don't choose to begin again, a new beginning is given to us.  We can sit, arms and legs crossed, refusing to budge, but it changes nothing.  A new beginning is our only option, unless of course we just chose not to move.  To me, that is no choice at all.

So Finnegan begins again.  All to the glory of God.

A Fork in the Road

Nothing like a return to academia to make you rekindle a love for writing!  Ha!  I crack myself up sometimes.  Still, all of those papers did remind me that a work that has been carefully worded, painstakingly edited, loving crafted, packs a punch.  Some of those sentences are so delicious, you can feast on them again and again.  That is missing when you just draw from your brain the random words that come to mind concerning a topic, a concept, or even a matter of heart.

A little over a year ago I started a new trail in leaving my job in resourcing and serving as a pastor in a local church.  I was not sure at all I had what it takes, and of course still testing the call with great fear and trembling.  Every single conversation was well considered, I was trying to be sure I knew that God was leading and I was following.  The scripture became more than even sermon prep, it became the source of encouragement, direction, affirmation, challenge.  I walked many a mile trying to be sure that God hadn't confused me with another, you know, more spiritual, better disciplined leader.  That scripture about not taking a seat at the head table, because it is humiliating to be asked to move, stays somewhere in my mind almost all of the time.

Today I stand a year on this trail, more convinced daily that God is leading and I am following faithfully, or as faithfully as a knucklehead can.  I am beginning to see new life peeking out at me in this place and that.  I see leaders evolving, stepping up, being willing to do the next thing.  I see transformation, and believe it is leading to more.  I see lives being touched, new faces hanging in, children coming in abundance.  Where there was once just a dream, now a vision begins to take form. The lost and the least are beginning to matter to us.  How amazing is our God!

I am recognizing seasons better by their themes.  The seasons that come with aging are hard, and painful, but also wonderful and carry their own delight.  Something about new life makes the value of old even higher.  The seasons of darkness, fear, chaos, loneliness have as much fruit as the seasons of light, happiness, community and direction.  All of it belongs, all of it speaks, all of it heals, restores, makes holy.  Our God is closer daily, though not always speaking in the same ways.  Be still, He whispers to my internal storms.  Peace.

The hunger grows.  The hunger to see the Kingdom come, in me as well as in others.  The desire to be better at what I do, more disciplined, more effective, more fruitful and faithful.  The urge to be great at what I do, pressing on for excellence, is a tension that keeps my prayer life growing.  Am I speaking the truth, God?  Have I heard you?  Can I say this better? Faster?  Do I live incarnation or just teach about it?  Learning to be focused on the main thing, and not distracted by every red herring, or rabbit, that crosses my path is great in conversation, theory, even study.  I find it really challenging in practicality.

This is not the end of the trail, only the very beginning.  I am living into where this trail is leading, but it feels like my trail now.  I look around so blessed by my companions, and I look up and believe that the Light that shines in the darkness is especially bright over my head.  I stand in awe of that magnitude of grace and mercy that flows in God's Kingdom. So let your light so shine that others will see the good work God is doing through you, and give Him all the praise and glory.

Making a new beginning, again! Begin again with me. How wonderful that that truly grace is new every morning, great is God's faithfulness.

The Way, The Truth, The Life

An Open Letter From A Pilgrim On the Journey

To My Fellow Travelers

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I am feeling the need to share with you my current place of contemplation, in that hopes that you will be able to share some insights.  Thank you in advance for your prayerful response.

I read of declining numbers and diminishing effectiveness of our current Church,and I see many of us concerned by that and eager to have a positive impact not only for our own sake but the future of the faith.  Yet, I see little desire to sit together in community, discerning where the Spirit is at work.  I hear a lot of discussion about the means of grace, and the importance of developing a strong relationship with God, and our neighbor, yet we spend a lot of time in debate and discussion, confusion and frustration. We say this is God's Church, the Bride of Christ, yet we seem to be spending all of our energies trying to figure out how we can improve it for the current reality without asking God how to do that.  Do we believe that God started the Church through Jesus and then left it in our hands?  Can anyone help me with this?

We are fighting again over emotional issues, both sides with an agenda that we say represents God's truth.  There are some who say there is no truth, all of life is situational.  Certainly this attitude allows for all the conflict, yet is inconsistent with Jesus' teaching.  The word in John 14:6 for truth is aletheia which is defined according to Strongs as: truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness. If Strongs is right, and John was right, and Jesus is right, then there is truth, and Jesus is it.  Jesus as fully God and fully man. Jesus in the quiet moments of teaching and in the violent moments of temple clearing.  Jesus warmly welcoming the children, and sadly letting a 'rich, young, ruler' make his own choice.  Jesus who washed his disciples feet, and rebuked inappropriate behavior.  Jesus who came to fulfill the law, not destroy it. Jesus who said if we even so much as call our brother a fool we are in peril of eternal death, and told us to forgive 7 x 77.   Jesus who is not God 5.0 but God who was, is and is to come.  This Jesus is Truth.  We cannot claim our own preferences as truth, our own desires as holy, our own attitudes as righteous.  We can only claim that we have been grafted into a productive vine and our chief responsibility seems to be Jesus for the world today by abiding in him continuously.  Yet, we call each other names, we assume we are righteous and therefore holy.  Can anyone help me with this?

At some point along my particular journey, I realized that while spending eternity with God in heaven sounds lovely, living each day in God's Kingdom is my current opportunity for transformation.  The day to day presence of God in the glorious light of the Holy Spirit is what gives the greatest joy, the powerful peace, the inner hunger for more and more.  It is the comfort and challenge in community to stand together in the midst of drama, trauma. celebration and tragedy. The life lived among fellow travelers who are on the way home, it is the real genuine life that makes eternal life a natural transition.  It is God incarnate, who is transforming my mind, transforming my heart, transforming my vision so that this life becomes a life that not only matters, it faithfully is God's Kingdom come, God's will done.  Jesus is the past, present, future life in our midst, in the desert mothers and fathers lives, in the future pilgrims who have not yet become.  Jesus' life is the triumph that makes death simply another transformation.  Yet, we seem to be acting as though this current state of confusion in the Church will stamp out a faith that existed long before we had as many denominations as we do flavor choices at Baskin Robbins.  Can anyone help me with that?

I believe Jesus.  I believe in Jesus.  I believe that God who is defined in relationship wants me to be equally so.  I believe that the messy frustrations of dealing with conflict, confusion, attitudes, egos, issues, drama, trauma, celebration and tragedy is essential.  I just don't know why we have to do it with so many sharp edges.  Why couldn't the love be so strong that we could look at one another with the curiosity of a toddler who picks things up and says, "Gramma Sue, what is that?" instead of the horror of an adult yelling "Don't touch that, it's gross!"?  Why, my brothers and sisters, must we demean that which we cannot understand and somehow feel diminished by?  Why oh why oh why can't we all stand with the saint of all time saying the pledge like we might at AA,"Hi. I am Sue and I am a sinner saved by grace".

With the hope of a better conversation,

Your sister in Christ.

Pure in Heart

Dear God,

It's me again.  I am tired and angry, frustrated and fearful, put out and put upon.  I am outraged at injustice and incompetence, and I want very much to stand somewhere high above the maddening crowd pronouncing judgement, calling down thunder and  lightening.  You know that I have lost my way, my focus, and the pure heart that hungers to see you.  Remind me, Father.  Help me see what is important, what is eternal, what is you.

The family?  You have that covered.  You know what my family needs far more than I do.  You know the choices we make, good and bad, and you have promised to redeem them all.  You love perfectly, and you know that nothing, nothing, nothing can separate your children from you.  I can trust that you mean what you say, you will never leave or forsake any of us, and you grace will be sufficient.  I am afraid but perfect love drives out fear, and it will keep us in the palm of your hands.  So, we may be pressed but not crushed, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.  We will stand because you will make us able.  Paul knew from personal experience what I am living into.  You will be enough.

The job?  You have that covered.  You know the dreams, I think they came from you.  You know the work, the heart, the hope, and the promise we live into.  If it isn't yours. I want to let it go.  If it is, open the doors that bring the victory and the glory back where it belongs, to you.  I am praying that my desire for your will grows in leaps and bounds, and my desire for my own will wither and die.  If this is the pathway that leads to that, help me endure.  If it isn't, then move heaven and earth to see your will done.  You made me, and you know me inside and out, all of my hope depends on you.  Help me to trust that is the only way to go.  You know I am afraid you will leave me in the dust.  I believe in you, please help my unbelief.

The Kingdom?  It is yours.  It was always yours.  I don't know what my part is exactly except to say, here I am send me.  So here I am, willing, fearful, tearful and trying to trust that you will accomplish what you want through me.  It's pathetic how small my faith is at times, and how deep distrust is rooted in my being.  Dig it out of me and replace it with the purity of heart that sees you as you are, not as I imagine.   Create in my a clean, whole, healthy, pure heart, and renew the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in me.

The future?  I want a future from Psalm 27.  I want to live in the Lord's house all the days of my life, seeing the beauty, constantly adoring, sheltered in your dwelling during troubled times.  I want to be hid in secret places, in your own tent, set up high, safe on the Rock. I don't want to fight these demons alone, and I no longer want to fear defeat.  I want to remember victory was won, and is a foregone conclusion.  I want to have my mind in perfect peace as it is focused always on you.

Waiting for peace to return, as it always does.  Thank you for your unconditional love and the promise after promise, reminder after reminder, hope upon hope.   You can always see me, really see me, and make the me you see beautiful.  This is grace.  

Serious talk about Shoes

Perhaps it was Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz, or maybe it was the Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada  but I am pretty convinced there is something magical about shoes.  They have a direct impact on attitude, I am convinced.  You put on a pair of flip flops, with or without embellishment, and you just have that footloose and fancy free feeling that came with being a teenager on summer vacation.   Some nice heels with a little bling and you are a starlet, gracing the world with your presence.  More likely for me would be the sneaker, sandals or most currently, the combination of the two, is the 'bring it on I got this' look.  Should I show up wearing slippers though, someone needs to send me home with a police escort if necessary.  Shoes, I am telling you, it is all about the shoes.

So imagine my surprise to see the man walking up the sidewalk in Nashville, strolling along at a pretty good clip, not wearing any shoes.  I don't know the man of course, and it would have been inappropriate for me to roll down my window and ask him where his shoes might be, but I really wanted to know why he was shoeless.  I could imagine all kind of crud that he must be walking on and over and through on his way to where ever he was going.  I worried about him all that day and he is still hanging out in the back of my mind.  Why, he could cut his feet, or pick up a disease, or wander through some horrible fluids of one kind or another.  Where were the man's shoes for goodness sake!

Then I got to wondering about places where people don't wear shoes.  I am a follower of Katie Davis and I have read her book Kisses from Katie.  I am aware that there are many people without shoes, and I know that they pick up parasites and all kind of infection from roaming without protection.  I know that shoes are often a luxury in places where survival is not a given.  Still, I can't even wrap my mind around a way of life where there are no magical shoes, or the ease to go replace those that are no longer wearable, or I  don't like.  I need to wrap my mind around it though, anything that bugs you that much must be a call from the Holy Spirit.

So I googled Soles4Souls today.  I discovered that not only does this ministry get shoes and clothing

to people who need them, they also create jobs by opening thrift stores so that people will not only get what they need, they can earn money in the process.  They also have an app for your phone that allows you to tack the miles you walk, run or bike and a donation of .25$ is given to help support this ministry.  You know, I don't know a thing about Soles4Souls., I don't know who runs it or what they believe or how effective they are, so I guess this isn't an official endorsement.   I just know that I am somehow concerned about shoes and people who don't have them, and I need to get some good exercise daily, and the combination might just be what the doctor ordered.

We get these prompts from time to time, and I believe they are doorways into partnering with the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Kingdom.  I don't know where this particular pathway leads, but I am putting on my journeying shoes and we will see. 

Thank you Mr. Shoeless Guy, I think I owe you one.

Comfort in Discomfort

What a season we are having, Church!

Just between us, this call to radical hospitality is exhausting, isn't it?  Every Sunday morning we are expected to be on the lookout for all these new people, welcome them and even give them our seats if they wish to sit where we ALWAYS sit.  Everyone will wonder if I am even in church if they don't see me sitting in the same place!  Worse, sometimes I don't even know all of the news because I am on greeter detail, and everyone expects me to talk to all the new people.  Thank goodness I am not a greeter every week!  Still during the meet and greet, I feel like I need to be looking for the new people, because someone will bring it up in my small group.  Going to church recently has just been a lot more work than I remember.


In addition now there is this need to find people who don't know Jesus, when I have spent all of my adult life avoiding them.  I was supposed to choose my friends wisely, remember?  You become like those you are around, I have been told hundreds of times.  I was very intentional about finding good Christian friends.  I love being with people who study the bible and want to talk about God!  Now I am being challenged to find people who don't know God and develop a relationship with them.  I tell you, it is wearing me out.  Have you noticed that people who don't know Jesus don't even care about how often I read my bible, go to church or even my very spiritual small group??? 

Studying Luke's Gospel is also a challenge.  It turns out I can't even invite my friends to a party, I have to invite people who can never throw a party on their own.  I am supposed to go find the lost, friendless, disabled, poor.  They are the people I need to be inviting to church, to the picnics, to my home.  I just don't really know that many people who are poor, or friendless and I worry about people with disabilities.  After all, what if something happens?  Will I know how to help?

Who is the center of my life, I am being asked.   It's Jesus, isn't it?  I read the scripture, I pray, I go to worship regularly, I give to the church, I have even written checks to support missions.  Surely God is the center of my life, Church.  Surely!

Only, there is something that's bothering me about the Gospel...I mean, Jesus does seem to make friends with some odd people.  Jesus does say some hard things to the leaders in the church that sometimes make me a little uncomfortable.  Jesus implies that we all have a cross to bear.   There have been some challenges in my life that I was sure might be the cross He referred to, but now I am wondering if there was more.  In fact, I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable.

I am finding less and less to support the idea that worship should be for me.  I can find nowhere in the scripture where my preferences trump others.  As I read about Paul and Barnabas and all of the first followers of Jesus, I can't find a good example of gathering in a group of believers and shutting out the world.  Even when it was a life or death situation, they still talked about Jesus.  I am more uncomfortable all the time.

What a season, Church!  Why couldn't I have remained happy in my own little Christian world?  Why on earth am I called to such a time as this?  Because I have been blessed beyond measure and I am being invited to help see God's Kingdom come, God's will be done?  Because I have been grafted into the Body of Christ, and as a child of God I can afford to be uncomfortable, since my security is absolute?  Because I have been shaped and formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others?  

You know, those seems like a valid reason.  Being uncomfortable is...uncomfortable, but it is a small sacrifice compared to what we have been given, Church.  How wonderful that God calls us to discomfort together.  Life will be different in the days ahead, and no one likes change.  Still, what if we are the people who, for such a times as this, transform the world?  Would that be worth some discomfort?  I think so, and my grandchildren will think so too. 

Discomfort may be a new spiritual discipline.  Or an old one revisited.  It may even look good on us! 

Politically Impatient

I am beginning to loathe the fall.  This is awful because it is traditionally one of my favorite times of the year.  I got married in September, I love to watch the leaves change, I adore the return of football, my sons loved marching band.  It's just full of all kinds of great activity, and it leads up to all those wonderful holidays.   Typically the weather cools off, but is still delightful.  It's the return to programming everywhere, I get to see people I missed all summer.  What is not to love about that?!

I will tell you!  It is the return to politics.  It is the billion political posts that drive me just about around the bend.  It is the right posting articles about the evil of the left, it is the left posting articles about the evil of the right.  Everyone finds the very thing that will bring enlightenment to everyone else, only it never does.  It simply provokes an article from the opposing party pointing out how unenlightened the first post was.  No one impacts anyone else, except to have them dig in deeper to the position they were already holding.  As to the undecided, they are deciding they don't want to be like either side, and they opt out. 

Already showing up in facebook the battle is launching, and this is not even a presidential election.  There are people I begin hiding because I can't bear to read their quote from one source or another.  You only need to read where it comes from to know what it says.  Can't anyone see this doesn't help anyone but the people who already think what you do?

I am sure I am the nut about this.  Others seem to enjoy the battle, working hard for ammunition to beat the other side.  Lord knows there are industries that thrive because of the on going war.  There has long been the belief that one party helps to hold the other party accountable, but I wonder how much this holds true.  So much in the world has changed, so much intolerance of intolerance, I wonder if we are ready to be people who reclaim some real core identity instead of people who are defined by opposition.

The Church is certainly experiencing a season where we are being called to reclaim our purpose and our heart.  We spent much too long fighting with the opposition on every topic from the way we baptize and who can serve where, to what color our carpet would be.  We were so opinionated and deeply entrenched that the world decided they could be spiritual without us.  In order to be the place that disciples are made, we must return to our first love.  The call Paul gave to the Philippians in Chapter 2 still stands:

 

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit,

 any sympathy, ² complete my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with each other. ³ Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.

 

While I am not suggesting that the world of politics pays all that much attention to Paul or the scripture, I do believe it would be a real blessing if the Church could show the world how much better it is to be for something instead of against something.  What if we stopped trying to compete and started complimenting?  What might happen if we made room for difference, and still stayed true to our own beliefs?  What if instead of becoming a big blob of nothing, we became people who are so comfortable with our identity, we didn't need to make others look the same to belong? 

 

Just a thought.  Until then, perhaps I better avoid social media under after election day.