Advent 4 // A Christmas of Love, Hate, and We
The final week of Advent is about the arrival of that which cannot be measured in our own advancement. Though we will move and be moved, we will find our being in such a love (Acts 17), ultimately there is a single horizon in Jesus’ newly opened eyes.
To take the “us versus them” down to the bare bones. To the studs. To the foundation.
To shred the selfish ends of what we sometimes call love when we haven’t been given a proper peek at the alternative.
Advent 3 // On Our Neighbor and Choosing Joy
This year we lit our Advent candles, we read about “good news of great joy,” in the midst of record numbers of pandemic-related deaths. With hospitals filled to bursting and with the circle of “cases” growing closer and closer to us, we read about the choice to be okay even when things weren’t okay.
Advent 2 // Faith Is Nothing And All
Faith in this season of Advent is about sitting ready for the possibility of the Divine around every corner, every day.
And when the sun rises and sets without a hint of something “beyond,” we rest our heads knowing that the Divine has space enough in the next day to arrive & surprise us. That is faith.
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Advent 1 // What Is Hope Anyway?
In Advent, we look forward in future hope but that hope is empty and laughable without taking stock of the present.
Where are we suffering?
What is the reality of our disinformation culture and how have we fallen headfirst into it?
Where is the center of our faith at this point in time?
How are we currently struggling with our theology, community, partner, or our inner world?
Without taking these things into consideration, we have no energy for hope at all.
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3 "Notices" From Turning 43
…as I look at my response to this year I notice a few specific things. There are places that, prior to 2020, were small and imperceptible fissures but via pressure and time have now become full-blown rifts.
As year 43 of my life’s project begins in earnest, I also realize that my response to these growing chasms has to be different.
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Winston and the Restless Quiet of 2:30am
Restlessness is that uninvited moment where we suddenly realize, like the bartender’s trope, “I can’t go home but I can’t stay here.” The restless moment in front of us is the space in between. It is the nowhere between where we were and where we’re headed.
You Actually Like Tradition (Guest Post)
All of this is tradition; it is living history. The way you and I experience a baseball game isn’t all that different from a century ago. If things don’t happen as we expected, it almost feels sacrilege. I’m convinced that we like tradition more than we admit.
(Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash)
Good Cancer and Where Growth Really Happens
I am frail. There are cancers that aren’t the good kind in this walking world; a world that is both temporary and miraculous.
And that is the journey - that’s where growth really happens. Knowing these things and their little deaths is what makes us more a contemporary than simply dust.
There is where we grow. That is how we heal.
Why We Needed Momma Bird
We needed a reminder that there was something normal going on, somewhere, and that life soldiered forward in its own way.
The need in us to see that the Spirit ignited the images of parenthood and growth within us at a time when we felt the all-too familiar confusion of parents who had gone before us.
What do we do now?
Is this how it is supposed to go?
A Cloud, A Fire, and A Reason to Clean Out Your Basement
It is strange what happens when we are given a chance to simply notice things. The slowdown in schedule and occupation of time gives us a chance to see unseen things. Unnoticed things.
The still small voice now grows louder and louder. Pay attention. Now I have your attention.
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What It Means to Show Up, Die, and Live Again
In a pandemic, we perceive the days differently. We take our steps more slowly, each task different from the “norm” as we work from home. As we do e-Learning with our kids. As we think about what will change in a world that is attempting to make sense of everything that has happened since mid-March.
And even in the strangeness of augmented routines, we sense an invitation to arrive. Each day. We show up.
Some Words In The Silence
When it comes to COVID-19 we want words that tell us that everything will be normal again. Our deep desire is to wake up to hear words – miracle words – that the “curve” now looks more like Kansas than Appalachia.
In the silence, we surrender the words because we are there to surrender the outcomes.
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Post-Its, Dinner Tables, and the Search for Awe
In the stay-at-home season that is COVID-19, we like many others are eating all of our meals at home. As a family, we’ve always had a high value for eating together. Now without the option of eating out, our table is carrying a great deal more weight.
During one of our walks, my wife and I discussed how easy it is in this pandemic to be overcome. The weight of unemployment numbers, financial projections, and the stories of health workers crash like tidal waves on our souls.
It is difficult to stand under the weight of it all.
So, Holley came up with an idea. Each night as we sat down to dinner we would talk about one thing from the day that brought us joy or hope, or something that was beautiful. Each of us responds and we write down those responses on a small card.
What It Means to Be Still
The lesson for this quarantine season feels very clear: The only way through is to go in - deeper and deeper, whatever may come. God is with us - never leaves us or forsakes us. I believe that. And I am also unsteady from time to time.
For me, it isn’t either “faith or fear.” It is that God longs for us so much that to live with God is to live with faith AND fear in a delicate dance. It is believing while we’re scared, anxious, and unsettled.
But how?
The One About A Wedding And A Pandemic
In a time of upheaval, we find light in the most peculiar of happenings.
I had to let a lovely couple, Ross and Vanessa, know that with the COVID-19 pandemic I couldn’t officiate their wedding in person. The venue they booked for their wedding had already cancelled, but we were in the midst of brainstorming other possibilities.
Then, other considerations emerged. An anticipated state-wide “stay at home” order. I recognized a need for all us wobbling humans to be wise instead of invoking our rights. Finally, closing of our church campuses to all non-essential activity decimated our creativity.
Or so we thought.
(thumbnail photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
It's Okay to Need
Admitting that we need things humbles us because it shows that we aren’t all powerful. Knowing what we need also puts us in the place of examining the why of our need and the feasibility of that need being met at all.
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Ash Wednesday and What We Do With Limits
This is Ash Wednesday. It isn’t a morbid call to think about our death, though that’s not a horrible thing to do. The ashes also don’t call us to overwhelming amounts of guilt around the crucifixion, though that is also a fitting line of thinking.
Ultimately, Ash Wednesday invites us to enter into our limits.
a promise before departing
This week, I head off the grid for a bit. So, today's note reflects that reality. It is brief, but hopefully helpful for you today.
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the domino falls
I often work with people who desire change. The work of spiritual formation is the work of facilitating transformation so that we grow to live well in our own skin. It always has been. Jesus taught the master class in this subject, and the rest of us are adapting that curriculum to our own lives and worlds.
However change or transformation happens not by accident or miracle, but because we have given our time to the small insurgencies against the old us whom we'd like to leave behind. We are pushing dominos towards life and health.
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it can always rain harder
The goal of formation is to be ready for the rain. It is to steady ourselves spiritually for the days when absurdity is all we can see. Formation through the Scriptures of lament, complaint, and whatever-in-the-world-Ecclesiastes-is give us language for the rain.
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