Suggesting Hope

Bodies crowded around. Coffee painting the morning air. Me alone in the crowd, cherishing a gift I have not begun to appreciate. My heart rises in standing ovation for this otherness that defies categorizing. Not sweetness per se. Distinct like a good strong coffee. Unique, yet still me—dawn surprising us with the consistent repetition of a completely new day.
The sun warms the chilled morning air and suggests hope from a quarter about which I did not know. In a form I could not recognize. Overooked possibility available at one's fingertips.

Moments

Great richness is found in learning to be attentive to moments. They come. They go. When we are present, attentive and engaged they are the experience of fullness itself. When we are busy, distracted, or stressed, they bloom and pass without anyone to enjoy their beauty. There is a poverty of spirit that ensues when we hurry past too many moments. What is a moment? Be attentive and find out. You will never be the same.

Self Sabotage

Have you ever wondered whose side you were on? I've always assumed I'd at least be for me. So I'm surprised when I find myself the cause of my own undermining. Self sabotage is different than having weaknesses, lacking skills, or making mistakes. It is a deliberate (if unconscious) working against something you, at the same time, are working for. No excuse will suffice. No other perpetrators on whom to lay the blame.
I need to get all of me on the same team here. It's okay if different aspects of me play different roles on the team. I've already come to terms with the fact that I am more complex than I had expected. But it would sure be nice if we (that is, all of me) at least could agree that we wanted to win the game.

Does it Matter Who Shows Up?

I've been going to church for almost thirty years, and I can count on one hand the number of people for whom it has been significant that I be present. Disappointing to say the least. At a fundamental level, church services are designed so that almost anyone interested can be there. The flip side, which gets less attention, is that consequently it doesn't really matter who isn't there either. When in a charitable frame of mind, I consider it but another clue that how we do church or whatever you might call it, isn't serving us well. Isn't serving me well. I'm beyond being too charitable anymore. I consider it negligence. I'm tired of hearing all the "irrefutable" excuses. There is no excuse for negligence. You and I matter too.

From Coping to Contribution

Ideas don't take place in a vacuum. They emerge from encounter and interaction. Reality assaulting us from all sides, we cope and engage in conversation with others. If not intentionally, then by bumbing up against each other througout the day, my story colliding with yours whether we like it or not. Sometimes we both go away enriched, sometimes a bit damaged. Living, learning, choosing anew our next steps forward. When attentive we glimpse new possibilities emerge from the continual happenings. Our self-protective coping maturing into creative and life-giving contributions.

Good Behavior

Character, behavior and human/spiritual maturity are intertwined. I need to remind myself of this, because I so easily weary of a behavior-centered approach to being a Jesus follower. As if the point of life was to be good, rather than the outcome of goodness being a fuller, richer life. But life is a lived, enacted reality. Its substance consists of what we do. Everything that lies within us comes out in how we choose to behave. Concrete, embodied choices. Sure, there's more to knowing God than being a good little boy or girl. But there's no route toward being a vital, thriving man or woman without choosing well.

Intimacy with God

Wrestling is the metaphor for intimacy with God that most deeply resonates with me. Lots of contact and close quarters, but not always clear on whether we're partnering or battling. I like it that way. Allows God to be God in the relationship—strong, interactive, unpredictable. Allows me to be me in the relationship—willful, opinionated, making a difference. Authentic relationship between two free persons doesn't need to pretend, play nice, or be conceptually tidy. One party is never diminished in order to exalt the other. Yes, wrestling. Alive, vibrant, intense and constant. Now that's intimacy with the living God.

Ambition and Fear

My ambitions and fears are not friends—yet. They sabotage and threaten instead of inform and complement one another. The lack of trust is palpable—a murky fog distorting the senses, undermining the decisive next step. Adversaries inexplicably sworn to discredit the other. I don't know whether I'm so much trapped in the middle or somehow playing the middle. Resolving to an extreme is not an option. A new way of holding them together in tension is my task. Encourage them to listen to each other, partner and collaborate.

No Turning Back

Free this morning. Free and strong. A nice change of pace. I've been feeling disconnected—almost as if I might float away. A lone balloon getting smaller and smaller—not that anyone is watching.
Today I sense my place and am more comfortable resting in it. Lots of work to do. But I accept it. So it's lonely for a while. Danger accompanies all new ventures. Risk goes with the territory. I have chosen a difficult road, and I will not turn back.

Blurred Edges

When the room starts to spin and there is nothing to hold onto; when the outline of the once familiar blurs beyond recognition and bleeds across dimensions; when the mosaic keeps rearranging itself, and, instead of finding the new perspectives helpful, we merely keep finding them. The silent scream is invalidated before it can be noticed. Death's icy embrace and other strangleholds we give ourselves to... lurk and haunt and hold out promises they cannot keep. Why am I so often deceived?
What if the spinning and blurred edges were actually the beginnings of seeing more accurately? That what I have assumed to be healthy is the lie, and to return to a stable, sharply focused experience would be to seal the door on the tomb, forever locking myself in a cramped, though self-justifying world. The darkness reframed as our all-encompassing orthodoxy. The familiarity with which we are certain about each "fact" masking the fact that we are, in fact, dead.

Disorientation

Crisp and bracing the night air. Hope and determination choose their way even in the oily blackness. Disorientation takes many forms, and none need lead to blindness. Path, compass and destination may be metaphors whose time is past. We cope while we become oriented to the disorientation. The day will dawn when our eyes will become accustomed to the night.

Complicit

Power's cryptic secrets taunt from a mythical center to which access has been denied. As long as I am willing to cooperate with the governing story, I am complicit in my own marginalization. I hold out my hands and then complain they are shackled.
Pursuing the suspicion there are other stories—or even writing a new one—is a more tumultuous struggle and often a heretical scandal until ultimately validated. Validated or discredited, evaluative conclusions no one is qualifed to make.
And yet I must choose my path even if blazing a new one. And there are not many days given within which to accomplish so much learning and doing. Too few to cede the agenda to hesitation.

A Matter of Life and Death

Determination's route from resolve to choices is certainly more perilous than I ever imagined. While the vistas from the top and the satisfaction of the achievement are probably glorious beyone measure, there are so many places where the location of the next toe hold is not apparent, or what you thought would provide a solid grip and hold your weight crumbles in your hand. Injury is a given and falling a real risk. You periodically find yourself question the wisdom of continuing.
The only hope lies at the top. To return to the valley is to choose death by suffocation. To fall along the way is at least death in pursuit of life. And, who knows, it might be life as well.

At the Core

At the core of my work is the insistence that incumbent on those who claim allegiance to the crucified and risen Nazarene is the responsibility to put forth a positive vision of what the reign and rule of God might look like in the 21st century. I am offering a framework for approaching, thinking about, discussing and acting upon the stewardship of our lives and the central (if not sole) injunction to love.

Something I Must Do

Inhaling deep wafts of the morning mist, I push my way into the day—that now familiar mix of courage and impotence coloring each step.
Foreign are the airs of self assurance that others seem to wear so effortlessly. But I press forward. Destiny's beckoning promise continues to visit in the night, dancing gracefully along the horizon of my imagination. My appreciation for this enouraging angel erases every suggestion that she is but a teasing whore. I am different. I am different for a reason. I am different because I have something to do. I have something I must do.