An Audacious Dream

This week at our small group, we were challenged by hearing N.T. Wright talk about down-to-earth ministries in the economically depressed area of Durham, England where he was the Anglican Bishop for seven years. These ministries grow out of worship that is not just about our personal, individual relationship with God but is also about “sustaining the life is that is going on around” the church in the community. As a school was closed, one man had a dream to provide education and training for persons with disabilities. As they mend broken furniture to make it whole, their own lives are mended.

Over this past year I came to know Buck Cochran through the discernment retreat series in which I took part. After serving as a flyer in the Navy, and then working as a chemist, Buck went to Duke Divinity School and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. While working as an associate pastor, Buck’s call began to be transformed to working with persons with varying levels of disabilities so that they would have a place to live, and work and grow into the fullest expression possible in their lives.

Buck and others had an audacious dream to transform 89 acres of farmland into Peacehaven Farm, a place where adults with “intellectual and physical disabilities [could] live independently within the embrace of the community around them.” The original idea was to start by building the houses and then to develop the farm. The financial collapses of 2008 intervened. Work began on the farm with many persons of all abilities from the surrounding community working together. This year, the first house, called Susan’s View after one of the founders who died of cancer, is being built through the work of volunteers coordinated by Habitat for Humanity.

An audacious dream has transformed the lives of everyone it has touched. This has really been about being people of faith seeking to “sustain the life that is going on around.” God is calling us to living an audacious life of faith together. This is a life, a dream to which I can give myself—mending broken furniture and broken lives to make them whole, giving glory to God all the while.

[Read more about BuckCochran and Peacehaven Farm.] 

Revelation 22:1-2

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Balance on the Continuum

Back in college as a psychology major, I took my two courses in Abnormal Psych over the summer before my Fourth Year. As with many nursing and medical students, reading about different syndromes and diagnoses often resulted in being sure that I was afflicted with them. One of the most helpful things I learned that summer was about the continuum. Behaviors run across a continuum, from very mild to severe. The reality is that most, if not all of us, exhibit those behaviors in our lives from time to time. We may show a bit of paranoia, or hypochondria, or phobia, or whatever. For most of us those bits are just that—bits—and they certainly do not overwhelm our lives. There may well be times when we find them overwhelming. And there are persons who deal with them in much larger segments than bits.

Over the years I have done a great deal of work to develop self-awareness. When I think I have grown, and then find a lack of it looking me straight in my face, I have a tendency to enlarge it. Then what has seemed golden and good gets a coating of slime. I lose a bit of the sense of balance, and see more things through the glasses of lack.

The reality is that I am the same person now as before. I have grown, but I am not perfect. I need to go back and re-play that lecture on a continuum and find balance. I also need to face the fact that try as hard as I can, I cannot see through the veil. I can only see through the mirror dimly. Someday, I will see my Lord face to face, and in God’s eyes, see myself clearly. Until that day, I have to be content with vision that tends to mis-see. In those moments, I need to surrender myself to God’s grace, and allow the Spirit to help me grow where I need to grow, bit by bit.

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, est

Lex orandi, lex credendi, est

As we pray, so we believe.

On Monday afternoon, I just about lost it. I read another really stupid, snide remark about who was responsible for the mess our nation was in. I was alone, outside, and granted I was coming down with the cold I inherited from Max, but I had an angry outburst. Then I apologized to God’s Spirit. I didn’t blaspheme by any means, but the world doesn’t need more negativity being pumped out there.

On Tuesday, a keynote speaker shared the phrase above. I believe this. The prayers we offer shape what we believe, just as the songs we sing shape what we believe. When our prayers become turned inward, so does our belief. Our spirit stops reaching out to include others. When we curse someone, our imprecation tamps that much more dirt onto them, adding that much more hatred in the world. When we bless someone, our blessing allows grace to flow from God through us to them, and we increase the Kindom of God just a bit more.

Last night, I watched as the final votes in the House of Representatives were cast. I was reminded what Jen said at our midweek prayer time this morning. In the midst of all the anxiety, she knew she had to pray for all involved—not praying by choosing a side, but for all. As we pray, so we believe. I wish I could say I prayed for each Representative casting a vote. Really, I was almost holding my breath, but now I do pray for each of them. And I continue holding each person who has been affected by this uncertainty, especially for my people who have been on furlough, and those who have been working without pay.

I still believe that my hope, our hope is in our God who is immensely bigger than any of this. I will offer this prayer up each day of the next four months and beyond: O God in whom we live, and move and have our being, cast your vision for us and may we find our hope in you. In your holy Triune name, trusting in your saving grace, and your transforming power, we pray. Amen.

Revelation 21:6-7

Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

Lord Have Mercy

What do we do when we have inadvertently wounded someone? Or more specifically, what do I do when I have wounded someone, especially unintentionally? After the shock of the realization, there’s the tendency to try to parse it, to analyze the situation, to make it better somehow. There’s the desire to go back and try to figure out how to say it better, how to do it better.

Instead of trying to justify myself, I simply need to go in humility and ask forgiveness. There is never any guarantee that forgiveness will be offered.

Posturing will not do. Standing rigid will not do. The only possible honest stance is humble confession, to stand bowed as the tax collector and say, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Matthew 5:23-24

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Though the Mountains Should Shake--Shutdown

First, sequestration. Now, shutdown. These signal all kinds of issues for our nation politically and economically. They might have the same kinds of issues for us personally, but I am more concerned about an effect they have on the spirits of many of my people. I debated saying “our people,” but I am sticking with “my people” because I am their pastor, and I hold them in my heart.

There are lots of headlines, stories and memes about the shutdown, about federal employees going in to the office on Tuesday to fill out their shutdown papers, but what I have read and heard, often between the lines is uncertainty. And even more, I saw a demoralized sense that their work is not valued, that they are not valued.

This is not an experience for only federal workers. Many in industry and other occupations have experienced it over the last few decades. There is a decrease in a sense of relationship within the workplace between employer and employee. Trust has lessened. I saw my father face it towards the end of his long years with his company.

Just as the rich man forgot his relationship with Lazarus at his gate, so we have been treating one another as cogs in a wheel, as figures on a ledger sheet, as things to be used and toss aside. We have forgotten to treat each other humanely, with dignity, with respect, with care and compassion. On Sunday, Jeremy asked us to take time in the days ahead to spend time with someone alien to us or someone from a different socio-economic group, to build relationship with them. However we deal with that challenge, let us take time and attention to see one another, to care for one another, and to provide a place where we are known and respected.

Though the mountains should shake around us, though the waters threaten to overwhelm us, in God—and hopefully, in God’s people—we find refuge and strength because we can take a longer, larger view. Our beginning, our present and our future is all in God’s care, as is the beginning, present and future of all creation.

Psalm 46:1-3

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble with its tumult.