Out of the Dust

It’s Katrina. It’s September 11. It’s the nightmare whose images fill our waking hours and make it impossible to turn off the t.v.  The world is glued to its news networks, waiting for a new word from the island ravaged by disaster.

But wait. Is it a new word that we wait for? Or an old one? Are we waiting for a new story to come out of that broken place, or do we simply wait for the one we already know to unfold itself and rise out of the dust?

Many would call it a sick fascination, this compulsion to watch round the clock coverage of other peoples’ suffering. A twisted way of being grateful that we’re not the ones living in such abject poverty that the very earth can shake us from itself.  A primal urge, perhaps, to delight in the carnage.  But that’s not, I think, what we’re after. What we’re watching for, really, is the sub-plot; the back story, the one that makes us read this book and watch this movie over and over again, everytime the ground falls out from beneath us. Its the song that we’ve known since birth, and this, like every new disaster, plays it again for our hungry souls.

Its not the blood, or the weeping and wailing that we’re after. What we long for is the phoenix rising from the ashes, Adam emerging from the dust. We watch, not with a demented glee (well, ok, unless you’re Pat Robertson) but with a breathless hope. We watch for the small miracle to reminds us that, even here, something holy lives, and the darkness has not overcome it. We watch for the 13-year-old girl to be pulled, unharmed, out of the rubble. We watch as strangers become community, and form rescue teams with no resources but hope and their bare hands. We witness relief pour in, however slowly, from universal compassion. And through it all, we know that something sacred moves in even that space.

The story that we hope to hear is a silent one, the movement invisible. But we know it when we see it, and in Haiti these last 40 hours or so, we’ve heard the opening strains of humanity’s great symphony; from the dust of nothing, we were born. Surely, new life still comes out of chaos. What will be born from this dust of destruction?  However you sing it, we are all just waiting for the third day.

A Blank Page

Sometime around Christmas each year, I get a very exciting package in the mail. Its not a Christmas present from a far-away friend, its not baked goods from across town…Its my Annual Planning Guide and Calendar from the Christian Board of Publication. Now, I may not be the most organized person on the planet, and I’m not very attached to a routine; but every year when that package arrives, filled with beautiful, clean smooth blank calendar days, I am happy. I feel hopeful, uplifted, inspired, and grateful for all those unwritten days in my future. The possibilities are endless!

Granted, by about mid-February, those pages are not so new and shiny any more. Engagements have been filled in the spaces, some in ink, some in pencil. Things have been crossed through, erased, and whited-out, only to be penned again in other places, or replaced by a more pressing need. The edges are a little dog-eared, and there’s usually a coffee stain on at least a month or two. That little book has travelled many miles with me by that time, and gotten me, on time, from one place to the next for several weeks. Its what I’d call broken in.

But for just those few weeks every year, I’ve got the joy of blank pages at my disposal. It’s the one time of the year I get to feel some semblance of control over my life. Yes, I realize what a sense of humor God must have about that particular delusion! Still, there is something happy and hopeful about knowing that your future days have not been written yet, and that you still have every opportunity to make the right choices, to order your priorities, and to use your time and energy in the best possible way, for every day that heaven has assigned you.

The new year offers that same opportunity. However stressful, painful or joyful the year before has been, the coming months invite you to make a fresh start in how you order your life. It is a season of new beginnings. Where would you like to see the lines fall in the year ahead? Where do you hope to spend most of your time, energy, and resources? What sort of journey can you plot out on that blank page before you?

God’s compassions are new every morning. Every morning! What an amazing promise. Can we say the same of our compassions, our grace and love, our energy to serve and share? Whatever you see on that blank page when you turn it over to January, believe in all the unseen gifts it contains, as well. God has each of your days planned, and filled with good things. New mercies, morning by morning. Whatever you think you know, whatever you expect or fear or hope may be coming, start your year off with the certainty of that promise. There is joy and new life to be found on each new page, and faith in the turning.

The Old, Old Story

Every Christian preacher in the world right now faces the same challenge; race, gender, denomination and geographical location make no distinction, nor do the “liberal, conservative, mainline-progressive, evangelical” labels that usually divide us so. No, the week before Christmas, all the world’s preachers do the same dance with the Holy Bible and address the same question to whatever image of God they hold dear– how am I going to tell this story again?

People of faith struggle in every season to give that story its rightful shape and color, but the pressure is really on at Christmas.  Its on from the people who may never darken the church door the rest of the year–don’t we want to tell them a sermon that will keep them spiritually nourished for 11 months? And its on from the people who keep our doors open the rest of the year–don’t we want to reward their faithfulness and hard work with a warm, Christmassy glow that comes when a much-beloved child steps up to the pulpit to deliver the annual Linus moment? “…there were, in that same region, shepherds, abiding in a field, keeping watch o’er their flocks by night…”

There’s way too much going on in this story–in any version of the story–to try and parse it out for the sheer breadth of people who will show up on Christmas Eve needing to hear the story. They show up for their “once a year” faith experience, because the day meant something to them once, and all the lights leave them feeling nostalgic. They show up with families falling apart, hoping that on this night, something will be different. They show up exhausted from another year of keeping the church alive on top of busy careers, family and personal lives. They show up grieving and empty, joy-filled and grateful, aimless and wandering, seeking and wondering; but on Christmas, you can bet on it–they show up. Where is the good word that speaks to each of these hearts, without just recreating the warm and fuzzy glow of a Hallmark commercial? Surely we can do better…

For an affluent, suburban church to “get” the Christmas story, we would have to find a stable of some sort and spend the night in it because we’ve got nowhere else to go.  For congregations of the homeless, the illiterate, the immigrant, the working poor, something’s gotta give on Christmas morning to make it all true; to make good on Mary’s song about the last being first and all that.

Garrison Keillor forgive this poor, wayward English major who does dearly love a metaphor–even in scripture–but for Christmas to come, something pretty doggone literal has got to happen in our midst, or it really is just a Hallmark commercial, and lots of us are out of a job. 

Well as I know that, here I sit, thinking about how I might wear some wings to deliver the message this year. Yeah, wings, that’s the ticket!  Engage the kids, get a cheap laugh from the adults, leave us all feeling holiday-cheerful and ready to go open gifts.  Then I think…surely I can do better?

The old, old story that we love so well is one of transformation. Its the story of love come to life in a way that leaves noone empty. And if we want it to come to life in our sanctuaries, our homes and our hearts this year, we’ve got to do more than just tell it. So perhaps we can give ourselves some grace in the sermon prep department and let the worship committee go home early. Perhaps if we want to bring our greatest story to real life this year, its the outreach and evangelism folks we need to call in for overtime. Maybe we replace the call to worship with a commitment to service to the poor. Maybe we light our candles and, before singing “Silent Night,” we pray for those living in war zones, where the night is anything but silent. Maybe Jesus is not the congregation’s newest baby this year, but the one abandoned at the hospital and in need of someone to hold and comfort her. Maybe the call to “Go, Tell it on the Mountain” is not the ok to go home and open presents, but an urging to go and invite your lonely neighbor to Christmas dinner.

I’m just thinking out loud. The angel might make an appearance in our sanctuary yet. But all the pressure to tell an old, familiar story anew leaves me wondering… did we  really hear it the first time?

An Air-Conditioned Arctic

Oh, the beauty of this valley in December!  Cold nights (but not freezing!) chilly mornings, mild afternoons, 50’s and 60’s, sunny with a crayon blue sky.  Hard to convince yourself its Christmas time, but we’ll live with it.

Tourists love Arizona this time of year, and its the easiest time of year to tell the locals from the visitors.  The visitors are wearing shorts and t-shirts, often even flip flops that they dug out of storage just for their trip to the desert. Residents have also been digging in storage; for the wool coat, the turtleneck, the beloved Cardinals sweatshirt that perhaps they will get to wear this month and this month only. There’s a weird cross-climate vibe happening all over, and people shopping in the same store look like they’ve emerged from closets on seperate sides of the equator.

Its understandable that locals want to bundle up while they can, and its certainly understandable that guests want to soak up as much sunlight as possible. But what’s crazy is that I went into Starbucks the other day when it was legitimately chilly–about 43 degrees, comfortable with a jacket with the car heater running–and they had on, I’m not even joking, the AIR CONDITIONER!!

Now, to me, the only way to justify the $300 utility bill in July is to know that i can live several months of the year with neither heating nor cooling device (or with very little help from either). For about four months of the year, life is pretty much perfect around here with no climate control, with doors and windows open for sunshine and fresh air.

Why then, on a day when one could live without it, could maybe even turn up the heat (as we did at my house that morning) would someone run the air to make it cooler?

We could lament the tragedy of American excess, but there’s more at work here.  I’ve always had a theory about perpetual misery, and the good folks at Starbucks have confirmed it for me. When you spend an extended period of time in a bad place, you can forget about happiness. You can forget about contentment, joy, peace. You don’t just forget how to experience them; you can possibly forget they exist–or at least, that they can exist for you.  Even when happier times descend, we often cling to the misery like a favorite sweater, because we’ve become so accustomed to it. And if your long, hard months were spent in the heat of the desert, you simply forget that the earth can cool you of its own accord. You forget that comfort, even perfection, can come to you naturally, without you having to strive for it, or force it from limited resources.  You forget how to turn off the air.

I wonder how many of our neighbors have lived long months in the wilderness of debt; unemployment; lonliness; addiction; loss; disappointment; and now cling to the barren ground as long as it will hold them back?

That’s where faith takes us this advent season; not just on our own journey through the wilderness and to the stable where new life is found. But out into our neighborhoods, seeking those who hang onto sorrow, and reminding them of another kind of embrace. We are called to retrace our steps through the desert, and gather the straglers into a life of community, purpose and–dare we hope it?–even joy. We will find some who never knew that life, and others who knew it once but forgot. Among them, many will be reluctant to turn off the toxic air they’ve been circulating these long, lonely months.

For all that we have filled it with false comforts, this is a rare season when the desert can provide what we need. In this precious space of a few weeks, we can dial back the auto-mated, pre-programmed and store-bought sources of air and light. We can remember what it looks like in its natural form and, the stable ever closer, rejoice with the windows open.

Shopping for Good News

Not even Thanksgiving yet, and I’ve sworn off the Arrowhead area until 2010. Which is a bummer, considering that I live there. Don’t know how I’m going to navigate the season, but I will at all cost avoid the mall and immediate vicinity. Traffic is crazy, the stores all look like Rudolph threw up in there, and people are not real plesant when you get between them and the last snowman dish towels.   

Other neighborhoods all over the country have the same over-abundance of shopping centers, malls and chain restaurants, but the one in which you live always seems worse.  So every day of this advent season, I will look forward to heading north, to this corner of 39^th Ave and Happy Valley Rd., where my daily drive to work takes me over the mountain and through the Thunderbird Park state preserve area. In the Christmas jungle, a little bit of wilderness can go a long way.

 Its no wonder John the Baptist camped out in the desert for much of his life. It is just breath-taking this time of year, when we are justified in suffering our summer months in misery.  (Its possible I may even call friends and family and, as they dig out from under 3 feet of snow, brag that it got down to 60 today and i got to wear a sweater). The beauty of the desert landscape has an absurd spiritual value, its impossibility making it miraculous. Even though our “wilderness” corner here at Foothills Christian Church has a few hundred thousand people camped nearby and a brand new Safeway across the street, we are still just a little further into the desert than most of the metro area. We’ve got one foot up the mountain (hence the aptly named “Foothills Christian Church”) and we can see salvation on the other side. We can see landscape that’s not landscaped. We can see open space and from right here, we can just hear a voice calling us into that wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord.

 If you feel like your preparation could use a lot less running and a lot more being still this year, I’ve got good news. If you think that preparation is less about those snowmen dish towels and more about your heart, I’ve got good news. If you know that God appreciates presence more than presents, I’ve got good news. If your thirsty soul craves a little bit of wilderness this year, I know a guy who can show us the way. In the wild, in the unknown: there is no Dow to determine your worth; no traffic; no politics; no swine flu; very few snow man dish towels. But there is good news.

Tis the season to share that good news with our neighbors.  People of faith live, always, on the edge between Christ and culture, walking the thin line between urban sprawl and blessed wilderness. Can you glimpse the coming reign of God, just over the mountain?  Where will you spend this holiday season? At Macy’s, or in the desert? Through the mall madness, the traffic jams, the endless compulsion to run faster and buy more, make straight in the desert a highway for your God. Prepare the way of the Lord.

In the Twilight

If you need any more evidence that people crave something holy, eternal and life-giving, then go to your nearest movie theater and count the hoards of people in a mad rush to see the new “Twilight” movie. 

The intensity with which these books and movies gather followers can mean only one thing; eternity remains a deep and inescapable desire of the human soul and psyche, and if you don’t find it in religion, your heart will surely seek it elsewhere. Eternity, after all, is the defining attribute of the vampire–or vampyre, depending on your medium. Conflicted and tortured though they seem, vampires remain sexy, exciting, and in some small way, enviable. From Stoker to Stephenie, those who pen these novels understand, in every age, the allure of life everlasting.

Of course, vampire stories also deal with literature’s unholy trinity; sex, death and otherness. Vampires embody the three mortal fears at the heart of all human drama, all human tragedy. Tensions around sex, death, and the Other compel the best and worst of our capabilities, relationships and even our desire to procreate. The best storytellers know these three tales of darkness and light. And when they want to tell all three in one fell swoop of wings and cape, they can only tell it with vampires.

Now, I’m more of a Sookie Stackhouse girl myself; more of the sex and death without all the hormonal angst of high school. Besides, its southern setting gives even more power to the dreaded trinity.  No place in the world is that trio more prevelant and less talked about than in the Bible belt.  The vampires that roam that part of the county don’t terrorize alone. They’re accompanied by centuries of bigotry, sexism, homophobia and general hatred of the other, often in the name of something holy.  

Each series has its own band of faithful disciples who find something deeply needful fulfilled in the vampire story. That need lies beyond escapism and entertainment. To be loved by a vampire is to somehow cheat death, and that has all the appeal in the world to anyone seeking life.

With threats of terror, pandemic and economic disaster on every side, people are desperate for something that transcends the current circumstances, something more lasting than the day.  And most of them seek it anywhere but the Church because of our deep and long-standing failure to deal with the trinity. Not Van Helsing’s trinity, but the big scary one. Sex. Death. Other.

Stephenie Meyer has found a better way to tell the story that people so desperately need to hear: that love can transcend time and place; that life exists beyond what we know; and that nothing–not sex, death, or the most untouchable thing about us–nothing can seperate us from the love, the life, the endlessness that we seek.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking these assurances in fantasy. That’s how great–and even just ok–literature is born. But if the world seeks this fantasy because the Church can’t provide the reality, then we are not long for this world. And not even the dreamiest of undead boyfriends will be able to revive us (call him Edward if you want–he’ll always be Cedric to me…)

In many ways, the mainline progressive Church appears to be living its twilight years. But perhaps there’s an invitation to eternal life, an opening for the story that we long to tell.  When the world is so hungry–or thirsty, as it were–for eternity, for love that crosses boundaries, then opportunity knocks.  But like every undead dreamboat from Dracula to Edward, it must be invited in.  Are we ready to tell the story of how love lives and breathes in the face of our darkest fears? Or will we cling a little more tightly to our garlic cloves and crosses? 

Our neighbors crave a little bit of darkness. But what they’re truly after is the light that refuses to be overcome by it; the light of grace, of sacrifice, and of life everlasting. The light of love that reaches even the most threatening and unlovable among us.  There’s a rush to bookstores and theaters because, most days, fictional, fantastical characters tell that story better than Christians.  Vampires are far easier to love than a body that claims to live forever, but just keeps driving nails, driving away the other.

In the coming decade, the Church’s ability to deal with matters of sexuality, mortality, and difference in a way that reflects the love of Christ will determine our will to live. Our response will mean the final nail in our coffin, or the wide open, empty tomb.  It is apparent that our neighbors seek good news.  They long for love that transcends time and place, that does not die, and that reaches out to every unspeakable, untouchable ill we can dream of. I think I heard a story like that once… Its time we bring it back from the dead.

New Fixtures

With the proceeds from a wedding, a funeral, and a couple of published articles, we purchased new light fixtures for our living room and kitchen.  This was not an impulse buy. Since I’m preaching abundance, simplicity, generosity, etc, in this holiday season, I’d like to qualify that I’ve wanted to replace these features since we moved into our home, nearly 3 years ago. So, we did not just go on a Home Depot spree on a whim. I took advantage of this extra income, (and the fact that Jeremy was having one of his periodic feng shui attacks, wherein he not only cleans like a madman, he also moves all the furniture. i’ve learned this is the time to engage him in any home improvement project i’ve got on my wish list. and i know he never reads this, so i can share my strategy. shhh…)

Anyway, not much of  a profound spiritual insight here; a small change in your environment can make a big difference in the overall feel of the space. any small change can have a big effect. But when you change something to do with the light, the transformation becomes something bigger.

Granted, i don’t much like the new “daylight” bulbs we’re experimenting with. They give the room a kind of post-apocolyptic glow, not quite worth all the energy efficiency in the world. But the fixtures…well, who knew that the mere casing of the light could change everything it illuminates, transforming the very air around it?

In this season of gratitude and abundance, what holds your light? From where do you shine? What’s the casing that the people around you witness? Remember, it is not merely decorative.

Mutual Friends

Do you ever feel like some of the people you love know a different Jesus than you do?  The word “pluralistic” has taken on a whole new meaning when it comes to western religion, and it seems that, within Christianity, we are attached to a number of different Jesuses. (is that the proper plural for “Jesus?” Please advise…)

I’m not going to elaborate a great deal because I know you know what I mean. You know people who share your faith–technically speaking–but when it comes to social, ideological, political and theological issues, you begin to find that you are following a whole nother Jesus than they appear to be. For better or worse, the savior of the world has been adapted and interpreted by said world a few times. When someone asks me if I’m a Christian, I’m tempted to say, “well, not like you mean.”

One of my favorite features on Facebook is the “mutual friends” display. You can go to any friend’s page and see who else they’ve connected with that you also know. Sometimes, there’s a fun suprise. Sometimes, you see that your friend from high school and your friend from college know each other, and you marvel at how small the world is, after all. Your friend from a summer job and your future brother-in-law used to date. Who knew?

So, if Jesus was on Facebook, wouldn’t it be fun to peruse all your mutal friends? Wouldn’t it be fun to call your college roommate and say, “hey, how do you know Jesus?”  Therein lies the answer, I think, to our multiple-Jesus problem. If we could ask of our friends who seem to speak a different faith language than us, “How do you know Jesus?” we could begin to understand the language barrier.

Because, my hunch is, where you met Jesus has alot to do with what you know about him and how you talk about him. Go through your facebook friends and think of all the points of connection that led you to them. Then imagine that you also encountered Jesus at that time in your life.  Or maybe I should say, remember how you met him there. How did the encounter of that time and place shape the Jesus you know now?

Do you find Jesus among the friends you knew in the church nursery, before any of you could speak?  Did he live in your old neighborhood? Did you reconnect with him in college, or meet him for the first time at your crappy just-out-of-college job? Maybe he was roommates with your ex. Maybe you met him once at a party and he remembered you, friended you, and you haven’t spoken since. Maybe he sold you your first house, or guided you through the process of adopting a child. Perhaps he lives next door to you, but you park in the garage, so you’ve never actually spoken. Does he fix your latte at Starbucks every day? Or teach your children at school?

Which Jesus is your story about? Who are the friends that you and Jesus really have in common? You might be suprised.  You might never know, because they’re talking about high school church camp Jesus, and you only knew him in college, when he was bass-player in a grunge band.  Maybe those places and people have little in common.  But faith asks that we seek the common thread, even if pulling at it begins to unravel some things. The Spirit compels us, not to deny the legitimacy of someone else’s faithspeak, but to ask, instead, “how do you know?”

Scoot Over

We are transitioning into stewardship season here at Foothills, and I’m still thinking about the neighbors. Mostly because they have taken over our facility, and there’s literally no room for new church programs. This has been an ongoing struggle around here, but I had an especially unpleasant night of it last night, and seem to be on a rant today.  One day soon, there will be an aerobics class in my office, and a pottery-poetry-cheese-making club gathered in the bathroom. Enough.

I will spare you the details of last evening. What I want to process instead is how well we–all of us–share what God has given us. In thinking about shared space at the church, most of us consider it a real ministry, to share our facilities with neighbors who need someplace to gather. Whether its a scout troop, AA, or a dance class that’s lost its home to city budget cuts, we open our doors wide. We ask a refundable deposit, and a small donation to keep the lights on. Our home is yours.

But that gets more complicated when the donations are no longer enough to keep the lights on, or when, pardon me, our neighbors act like church groups are in their way. I want to say “But its OURS!” I feel like stomping my foot when I say it too, but resist. Because a little voice inside my head says, ”OURS must include God. This is God’s space, and we are its care-takers.”

So, that in mind, how do we use it to be good neighbors? Does it mean sitting quietly in a corner and never starting a new ministry? Well, no. But, if we are living on God’s terms of use, it does mean that we are not just land-owners, but stewards, as well. Perhaps it is time re-evaluate what we give away, and to whom.  The way that we share our space–God’s space–should reflect how we share what God has given each of us.

Here are two good criteria for using your time, talents and treasures in a way that honors the Holy. That which is life-giving…and that which you can live without.

If a group that gathers here changes people’s lives in a way that the church is not equipped to do, then let them come. If a group that gathers here meets in a time and place that we could not otherwise use, let them come. Who’s left? Well, those folks might be getting a phone call from me pretty soon.  And if its some of the same folks who are unplesant to deal with, well, then I will try not to enjoy it too much. 

Now, ask these questions in your own life, of your own “stuff,” your own gifts for service, your own time. What do you have to offer that is life-giving in a unique way? What has God given you that your church or community really needs a part of? And, what do you have that you can live without?

If those questions are not shaping the priorities in where you spend your time and money, it might be time to make a few phone calls of your own. What has God given you that is life-giving? And what can you live without?

Trash Day Discipleship

Try this: put your trash bins out on the wrong day, and see how many of your neighbors follow suit. You will be amazed.  People are looking for leadership and direction all the time, and they don’t even have to know you well (or at all) to try what you are doing. The simple presence of your bins out on the curb suggests that, perhaps tomorrow is trash day after all. Rather than trusting their own experience, or the neighborhood newsletter, many will simply put theirs out just in case.  They will believe that perhaps your way is better; perhaps you know something they don’t.

Well.  That’s an amazing power that you have right there.  What else might you “just try,” to see if your neighbors will do it too?  I’ve seen the same effect with Christmas decorations, or, more recently, the Halloween variety.  One house goes all festive, and the one next door needs to match, or go one better. This is where trends emerge. At least, in neighborhoods with a gracious HOA.  Landscaping.  Yard sales. Political signs.  (although, these days, putting a political sign in your yard is just marking yourself as a paintball target). The selling of girl scout cookies or boy scout popcorn. All these things demand a response from the neighbors, maybe even a sense of competition.  The pattern’s begun. And all you did was forget what day the trash comes.

Can these patterns of call and response build community? A modern-day, real-life litany of connectedness? I think so. But you can make your neighbor put out their trash early without even knowing them. What sorts of change might you effect in your midst if people really know you? If people feel connected with you from a shared experience, a recent conversation, or a common interest they know you share?  What if they look to you for wisdom, not just because you are there, but because you’ve got something they are looking for?

Your neighbors are seeking. They are looking for leadership, wisdom, relationship, something holy that they forgot to ask for. If you are a person of faith, then you have the power to answer the seeking soul next door. If you have made yourself a living light, opened your door, and welcomed the stranger, the next question for you might not be “now, when is trash day again?” It might just be, “what do you believe, and whom do you follow, that makes you seem so peaceful, joyful, and loving?”  And you can answer, “I’ve got good news for you.  And, Wednesday.”