Conversation for Transformation

A Prayer for Friday – Papacy Edition

March 15, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

This week saw “white smoke” billowing from an Italian tourist site-slash-historical landmark-slash-house of worship.

The largest group of Christians in the world saw a new leader at the helm. An Argentine. A Jesuit. What does the average evangelical, or non-Catholic of any brand, make of this?

I’m not sure.

What I do know is that if Pope Francis I is dedicated to humility, to suffering with those who suffer, to living out the Kingdom of God in both policy and personal habit, then I will stand and cheer in the great cloud of witnesses. We may differ on birth control, communion, membership and authority, but ultimately there is a cross in St. Peter’s Basilica, St. George’s, St. Elizabeth Seton, etc. that matches the cross on the hill just outside Jerusalem, and we share the ground beneath it after all.

As Jesus said, “Anyone who is not against you is for you.” (Luke 4:50) I pray God will bring hope and transformation through the new pope’s leadership, and that he’ll examine his conscience daily as the founder of the Jesuit movement did many years ago.

In light of the Pope’s replacement, I take a page from my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ and offer today’s brief prayer as it came from the pen of the Church’s first “pope” – St. Peter. May His words bless you as you head toward worship and honor – whether it is with the rosary and the missal or with drums & video or any number of ragamuffin liturgies in between.

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.” (1 Peter 5:10-11, 14)

Bowling With the Bumpers Down

March 13, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

I never knew that the smell of masked foot odor could create such nostalgia.

If you’ve ever been to a bowling alley, you understand that there is an aroma – no, that’s too soft a word – a presence created by rented shoes and stale light beer that can’t be ignored. The linger of Camel straights, nearly-burnt pizza crusts and humanness leaks out of every wall and corner like specters waiting to haunt unsuspecting victims on the hardwood landscapes.

For me, the greatest invention a bowling alley ever offered to the free world (other than recently when they began to also house golf simulators) is the “bumper system.”

For children or newbies, the alley puts up the equivalent of training wheels on the lanes. Two long rails, hinged at the top of the left and right gutters, are lowered into place. They protect the ball from mistakes and mis-throws that come with a new hand plunging into the holes and rolling the heavy orb toward the helpless pins. The rails, like long parallel bars, bounce the ball away from penalty and toward the goal.

I’d like to use the bumpers, honestly, because occasionally I feel like I can throw it like a pro and I end up either lying on my ear or hurling the ball straight into the gaping maw of the gutter demons.

Our life in Christlikeness is not dissimilar from bowling. We feel confident, over time, that we have mastered a certain amount of personal holiness that sustains us throughout any situation. We know the story, the code words (like “atonement” and “sanctification”), we’ve served and we feel comfortable praying or talking to someone else about the incredibly journey of salvation and grace.

Then it happens – gutter ball.

What we need are disciplines – training exercises, reminders, thought-markers – that help us bounce off of the sides and toward the goal of transformation into Christlikeness.

This is where we often mistake spiritual disciplines for earning efforts – every critic of spiritual formation I’ve ever read subscribes to a similar view – instead of understanding them as means and avenues by which we allow God to form and shape and direct us by opening up to being trained by Him and to learn from Him.

It does require our effort, our participation, our perseverance and most importantly our planning. You can’t throw the bowling ball and then put the gutter rails down as it rolls.

We have to intentionally imagine a life trained to know and be known by God in increasing degrees as we walk the paths God lays out for us. Then we plan to live toward it.

What disciplines are you currently practicing? If you haven’t started this journey, the best question is this: Where do I constantly throw gutter balls and how can I open myself up to God’s bouncing through disciplines?

Here are a few suggestions of disciplines with corresponding “gutters”:

Fasting - compulsive behaviors/addictions, anger & impatience

Silence/Solitude - unwise/unguarded words, distraction, busyness

Memorizing Scripture - struggles with thoughts, anxiety, lack of peace or focus

Sabbath rest - overwork/workaholism, anger, controlling behavior, broken personal relationships

3 Ways to Mind The Gap

March 11, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

The lights are up, the stage is set. You are ready for this moment, you’ve been preparing and now the nerves are humming but so is the circuitry of excitement. Everything falling into place, this moment has been coming for a long time and you know you are ready.

You enter. You take the stage.

Perhaps it’s a conversation, a speaking engagement, a huge interview or presentation, or just a confrontation that has been a long time coming. You stride in confidently. You say what needs saying and you feel that sense of accomplishment. The heavens open. Doves descend. Oz turns to color.

Then, inexplicably you walk towards that person closest to you – the person with the rights to visceral honesty and they look at your face. Then they tilt their head ever so slightly to the right, narrow their eyes, and lean in towards you.

“You’ve got a little piece of spinach right here,” they point to the canine and incisor area where rebellious food always seems to congregate. Big moment becomes uneasy in a queasy stomach riding the waves of revelation.

We all have gaps. Things we can’t see in ourselves that change who we are. I’m not talking about an unattended zipper or chunk of spinach, but those places where other people can cleanly see the lack of transformation in us where we see only perfection. Planks appear while we hunt for specks elsewhere.

Dr. David Benner in his book The Gift of Being Yourself gives three diagnostic questions* to help us see the blessed opportunities for transformation that lie just beyond our ability to see. They are the great spiritual “spinach locators” so to speak.

1. What are our pet peeves?

“If laziness in others is what really bothers me, there is a good hcance that discipline and performance form a core part of the false self that I embrace with tenacity.” We’d be well served by looking at the things that concern us about other people in order to discover things within us that are unhealthy or distracting to our true life in Christ.

2. What are we protective or defensive about?

When we are questioned, do we react with a “What do you mean?” or an aggressive “Of course not!” There are times when these defenses come quickly because the question or suggestion is dead on the mark. If we find ourselves annoyed or irritated, it is helpful to ask why we’re so defensive in the first place. Is this an area of blindness for us that defensiveness simply brings to light? What do these areas say about our formation into Christlikeness?

3. What pattern is there to our compulsions?

All of us have compulsive behaviors – things we do without really thinking – but examining patterns helps us see things that we have lost objectivity toward. Workaholism, perfectionism, extreme orderliness or cleanliness, etc. are all patterns of compulsions that reveal places where we are insecure, hiding, or protecting ourselves from someone or something. Benner says, “They often involve a good that is elevated to the status of the supreme good by disproportionate importance we attach to it.” Translation: too much of a good thing can hide destructive things. Are we abusing the good and in the meantime losing our way with God?

Take a few moments this week and write these three questions on a legal pad or type them out. Reflect on the last few weeks – have you been defensive? Where and why? What compulsions came to mind in #3, and why? What are your pet peeves? Do they reveal something deeper?

I believe the Spirit of God is calling us all to use these questions to allow Him to search us and know us (Ps. 139:23) and to ultimately “mind our gaps.”

(*courtesy of Klaus Issler, Living Into the Life of Jesus. p 44)

A Prayer For Friday – RETURNS!

March 8, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

It has been a while, but it is time to return to the Friday prayer post. Preparing for this weekend, whether you are headed toward Sabbath or busyness, may this prayer carry you through. Today, I credit Ruth Barton with turning me towards Ted Loder’s wonderful book Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle. I pray it blesses you today.

Eternal friend,

grant me an ease

to breathe deeply of this moment,

this light,

this miracle of now.

Beneath the din and fury,

of great movements

and harsh news

and urgent crises,

make me attentive still

to good news,

to small occasions,

and to the grace of what is possible

for me to be,

to do,

to give,

to receive

that I may miss neither my neighbor’s gift

nor my enemy’s need.

Precious lord,

grant me

a sense of humor

that adds perspective to compassion,

gratitude

that adds persistence to courage,

quietness of spirit

that adds irrepressibility to hope,

openness of mind

that adds surprise to joy;

that with gladness of heart

I may link arm and aim

with the One who saw signs of your kingdom

in salt and yeast,

pearls and seeds,

travelers and tax collectors,

sowers and harlots,

foreigners and fishermen

and who opens my eyes with these signs

and my ears with the summons

to follow something more

of justice and joy.

(“I Need to Breathe Deeply, pp. 22-23)

What Healing Really Gives Us…

March 6, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

Take a moment right now and think about this scenario:

You’ve been sick for a long time – perhaps hospitalized – and you are finally coming back to normal. You’re eating without feeling that hospital-induced nausea or the tension of wondering whether the food would remain within the friendly confines of your stomach. You shower for the first time – oh, is there anything closer to heaven? – since you can’t remember when.

That clean soap smell replaces the Vicks, Hall’s, and unwashed hair smells that you’ve called home for the past few days. Your color returns, your steps feel more secure, you are able to travel freely without a gross of tissue boxes as your carry-on luggage in the car.

It is a blessed feeling. Life has come back to normal.

A story flashes into my mind, from Luke’s writing on the truly scandalous and highly life-altering story of Jesus:

“As (Jesus) approached the gate of the town a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak…” (7:12-15a, NRSV)

It is a perfect Jesus moment. At the bustling city gate, with would-be followers and likely a large share of critics in tow, Jesus sees desperate need and levels it with compassion-centered healing. The hand of God, the Spirit of God, coursing like 220 volt current through the crowd as the dead man sat up. This kind of thing simply does not happen.

However, it was not the dead rising that struck me this time around, it was the final phrase of verse 15:

…and Jesus gave him to his mother. (7:15b, NRSV)

Luke is a detailed historian, leaving nothing to chance, so why put this little detail in?

I believe it’s because healing is not removal, it is return.

Healing gives us back to the things that we have lost, that have been misplaced or set aside for a time while we were suffering or even dead on some level.

The recovery from addiction leads to renovation of our relationships behind us. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Peace.

The recovery from past wounds leads us to mending the destroyed bridges and aqueducts between us and family – even those long dead – so we might chart a new course with Christ.

Healing, in this case literal and immediate resurrection, is what most of us need to address those things within our lives that may have killed us in the first place.

Jesus’ most compassionate act to this mother is to give back the one thing she had lost, and loved most. An only son was a prized possession, as Jesus’ own mother would soon learn in full.

The healing and resurrection you are looking for today is not simply an escape hatch, an exit strategy from a world gone wrong. No, it is the very breath of God and holy arrogance we need to storm what was the prison of our sickness and death and take it captive for the sake of peace and glory – and to set the Kingdom wild and free into our everyday lives.

Where do you need healing & resurrection today?

If you receive it, are you ready to be given back to those who need you the most?

6 Questions for Making It Through

March 4, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

Perseverance. Resilience. Sticking with it.

When we have to simply press through to Jesus…

While I’d like to dress it up and say that the softer virtues such as being well-spoken, thoughtful, etc. are the keys to navigating tough times and huge changes in life (even the life of following Jesus) there are times when the three words above are critical for our journeys.

When the time-worn paths of prayer seem fruitless.

Times when Scripture no longer jumps off the page at us, but instead has to be coaxed out like a hound shaded under an idle car on a hot August day.

Times when fasting and silence feel like torture instead of training.

It is in these times where we are seeking, with desperation and ultimately hope, for something that we can’t quite see. We need perseverance for that journey.

A map, a strong friend, and a simple directive to find what it is that our souls long for most. The wisdom and liveliness of the Spirit of God, renewing us again and again.

In a recent article in Weavings, Steve Doughty talks about “Gifts of the Holy Resilient” and offers six questions for those times when we are struggling to hang on. These are for those of us who are transitioning – when our relationship with God has changed due to growth (three cheers!), trial, or simply the passage of time. They are also for those of us who are growing older physically as well as spiritually – navigating the changing world in parallel lines with our changing souls.

1. What must I/we let go of?
We have a desperate need to hear from God on the things that need to be released, reliquished, or simply dumped at this point in our lives.

2. In the midst of the change that is taking place, what abides?
Even as things are changing rapidly, there are things that continue to be true. Promises of Scripture, the way we see and know God, or memories of God’s faithfulness are all things we look for in times of transition.

3. What of Christ am I/are we invited to put on?
It never fails that in the times of resilience and perseverance we’re presented with new ways to become like Jesus. Even as the world around us changes and challenges us, what happens within us is still far more important.

4. What fresh glimpses of God’s grace do I/we see amid all that is going on?
We begin looking for ways in which God is appearing, fresh and new, in the midst of chaos and challenge. God is always at work, if we will slow our steps long enough to witness it.

5. What models of faithful change can I/we look to?
Who in Scripture or in our history has made great change or experienced great trials and perseverance? Perhaps it’s a personal friend or it could be found through reading biographies of followers of Jesus such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Either way, we need well-chosen and adequate guides to make this journey.

6. How might what I am/we are learning help others?
It’s always important to remember that we aren’t simply being transformed for our own sakes but for the sake of the whole world. We’re made resilient so that the world may see resilient witnesses to Jesus. We persevere so that we can show others the joy of seeing things through to the other side and being healed and strengthened by the good and beautiful God at every single step along the way.

My prayer is that these questions may help you if you are going through a transition in faith or life right now. I welcome any dialogue you have, and am open to helping you find a spiritual director that may fit this time in your life. Simply comment below and I’d love to point you in the right direction.

Peace.

What Happens in Africa…

March 1, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 3 Comments

British Airways flight 0064. Service from London’s Heathrow Airport to Nairobi, Kenya. Leaving around 11 AM, local time.

8 hours or so of air time, and the amber lights of African runways called wheels down to pavement and lives into engagement with a world we’d barely recognize save for the trappings of a semi-modern city in the year 2013.

95 Parkview pilgrims touched down armed with knowledge, faith, medicine, and an incorrigible and incorruptible hope that perhaps…just maybe…we might see the dead raised both literally and metaphorically in the next 10 days. We were not disappointed.

I was able to serve a session leader for local pastors and worship leaders in the Mathare Valley, and their faith and knowledge of Scripture took my breath away. Theirs was a faith tested by death, poverty, and oppression. Mine is one tinted by consumerism and the radical Western individualism that saturates me like water to a salmon every day.

They welcomed me in, poor Swahili on my part and patience exceeding all expectations on their part, and taught me about what life looked like when all the crutches and stretchers of convenience are tossed aside. I hope I don’t paint this too romantically or idealistically – there were still personality conflicts, ego-driven decisions, etc. but the stark reality of glue-huffing and desperation in the streets leveled the playing field quickly.

Our team were enchanted, daily and immediately, by children. The Mathare Valley boasts a population of around 800,000 and 25% of that population falls into the category of “children.” For those of you mathematically challenged, that means 200,000 tiny unkempt souls wander the dirt alleys and tin shanties playing with plastic bags that were previously used as toilets and tossed into the open rivers of sewage that flowed like welcome mats in front of the tin houses packed throughout Area 1.

Yet, there in the midst of the stark desperation, were lighthouses - schools.

Pangani.
Baba Dogo.
Huruma.
Kosovo.
Mathare North.
Joska.

Our hearts were torn from the immense darkness to the blinding light, from the struggle and trial to the victory and vigilance, from a life of desperation to a desperately beautiful life of education. Mission of Hope International cast a wide beam and now has 16 schools (including those listed above) throughout the Valley and now in the Lodwar province – Turkana, where Parkview has partnered with CMF to adopt almost 1000 children and will continue to sponsor kids so they can get the education they need and become the world changers who can embrace the masterpiece-work set ahead for them (Eph. 2:10).

Construction team built and plastered. Medical team healed and treated. Spiritual growth team taught and directed. Business team cultivated and developed. Photography team created and instructed. Self-defense team protected and stretched. We laid our skills out on the line, and we pray God was glorified. We were definitely transformed. I watched our teams create beauty everywhere they went, and I was humbled to simply be around these incredible folks.

At the end of our time, we were able to see the school at Turkana opened and new life starting to flow to a new tribe, a new tongue, a new nation of people. In the meantime, 8 people from the safari team chose this time of their lives to say that they would join fully into the Kingdom of light, and were baptized in a pool overlooking the wild fierceness of God’s creation in the Masai Mara. The roaming lion was denied again, this time in force.

But this is not the end.

Entering back into the stream of life in our Domestica, our home, our country of origin, things are different. Perhaps you can’t step in the same river twice, I don’t know.

It seems as if the volume has been turned down on the things to which we returned. Daily inconveniences seem less painful, less trivial. The pace of life without 10 AM tea time seems silly – perhaps even dangerous. The choices, the wealth, the overwhelming nature of stuff clings like poison ivy to our souls and the scratching drives us up the wall. They say it is normal, yes, reverse culture shock in full force, and it is a beautiful and joyful transformation to know that you won’t be able to see the world the same again.

When you have stared into the brilliance of the Sun – in the joyful smile of a child with little to be joyful for except the Good Shepherd Himself – the flicker of a flashlight simply will not do.

I have been changed. I long to be changed. Come Lord Jesus, now and forever.

Ashes to Ashes

February 13, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

Today is Ash Wednesday, the official beginning of the season of Lent. The word “lent” is derived from the German word lenz, meaning “springtime”.

Days of new growth, green grass and budding flowers.

Days of resurrection life out of cold Midwestern wind sheets crushing both marrow and bone.

That was a personal note, but true all the same.

As a pastor now for nearly 17 years, I have done my share of funerals. I have walked the padded carpets of Victorian-homes-gone-parlor with people in various stages of grief. Some of the “It’s better this way” and some of the “I can’t believe he’s gone” persuasion, some weeping and some rejoicing, and even more painfully some who are unaffected. A life that leaves little wake behind it is hardly missed when it is gone. I do know that someone, somewhere misses it but for whatever reason they were unable to attend the services.

I have spoken the words of comfort, smelled deeply the flowers surrounding the bier as I inhaled pain and sorrow and exhaled the words of a God who “comforts” (2 Corinthians 1) anyone, anywhere, regardless of the reason. I watch them pat their eyes dry, watch their young children to whom death is for the old snake in and out of the rows of chairs looking for a grandparent-figure with an open hand and a pocket or purse that may contain mints, candy, or any other distraction.

Then we head to the gravesite – I follow the casket at the head, which is notoriously difficult to do unless you pay attention when they close it, and ride in the hearse with the funeral director. I wish I could recount all the conversations with these men and women of the “dismal trade” but this book accomplishes that feat with grace and beauty that I don’t have at my disposal.

We arrive. Trekking across grass and stone, braving wind and heat, to the final resting place. I stand at the head, again, either under an awning or in the open expanse of God’s oxygen-rich world and say the words from Psalm 23 – “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

And we are all there, in the valley, in the shadow, almost instantly.

However, I have never talked about the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” passage at a graveside. Instead, I opt for Paul’s words on resurrection in how a seed must fall to the ground and die before a plant can grow (see 1 Corinthians 15).

We are all in the shadow, the valley, yes, but we are following the plow. We are being planted, even as we live towards our bodies dying, we are being planted.

It’s on this day, Ash Wednesday, that these thoughts rush back to me. Thoughts of funerals past, friends and unknown penitents long since buried and mourned, come bubbling to the surface as I think about the ashes that will travel on foreheads of God-lovers yet to be planted. Those of us walking through the valley of the shadow.

So we do Lent. We fast, we submit, we enter in with our minds and hearts to the thought that we are tourists in the valley of the shadow and will one day become residents. And yet, this fresh springtime lets us know that we are simply being planted. There is a resurrection. There is a new body and a new world and a new way of seeing things rightly that lies just beyond the glistening veil at the end of our finger tips.

So no meat on Fridays, or no beer or chocolate or Facebook for 40 days, yes, yes and right and holy. Yet if we do not come to the conclusion that it is all part of the ashes, something that must die for the seed of our souls to be planted, then we do not live in springtime at all.

We are in a world, as C.S. Lewis illustrated: “Where it is always winter, but never Christmas.”

Come Lord Jesus – draw us into the future of your resurrection as we meditate on the ashes of our present. Come Easter, show us what the valley is truly for.

The Yeast and the Wildness of Spiritual Life

February 11, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 0 Comments

I have mentioned several times on this blog that I’m exploring the art and science (more on this later) of making bread. There is something so spiritual – meaning “inspired” or “exhaled into” about taking raw materials and nudging them like strangers in an elevator until they come together to make something beautiful. Something good. Something true.

Working on a recent batch of honey wheat bread, applying everything I’ve learned from YouTube and this hilariously irreverent book, I was struck by a thought that should have made me put down the spoon and walk away from the whole business.

I am not making bread. The bread is already made.

For some folks, this is too philosophical and “go-live-on-a-mountain-and-think-deep-things” to handle. Sounds a little Zen to me, Casey. Not sure we should head that direction.

It is true though – I took yeast, milk, honey, flour, warm water and salt and applied them in different measures and timings in order to make dough. Then, well, the mystery of all bread making comes to bear on us - will it now rise?

Will the yeast feed on the sugars in the honey and the flour, comforted and encouraged by the warm water and warm location, so that what was a sticky mess may rise with air bubbles into a soft and workable sponge that is the redeemed version of the sticky former?

And then, the kneading – taking this fluff and punching it like a tentative prize fighter and rolling it firmly but not TOO firmly until it is smooth and elastic, dividing into loaves and letting sit another 45 minutes to an hour. Would it do the work? Would something good come from this violent, palm-first assault on the tender yeasty blob that is becoming muscular in it’s own way?

No one knows. However, any bread maker will tell you that you suspend this thinking at the beginning – you merely work at creating the environment and let biology take it’s course. We are not here to create from nothing – we are here to find the bread already made.

There isn’t much difference between bread making and the soul forming journey of formation into Christlikeness. You don’t make yourself Christlike – no, far from it – you simply create the environment and bring everything together in it’s time.

The yeast of grace makes us rise even when we look like a sticky mess.

The warmth of disciplines like fasting, Sabbath and simplicity encourage and cajole us to rise when our body wants to drop the whole venture.

The kneading of tragedy and struggle make us elastic and ready to respond and be used, after a time, to feed others on the goodness and sweetness of difficulty well endured.

The oven of hope and resurrection provides that we will come out as something new – both here and now and later when the song ends and a new song begins.

The spirit is already formed, sweetly and poetically by the careful Carpenter’s hand as it mended and stirred and kneaded the world into the shape of a good and lasting Kingdom.

Today, relinquish the foolish need to merely be original and bring together the ingredients that cause beautiful smells, an aroma to Christ, to rise from your life. Find the bread that God has already made.

Peace.

When Your Heart Is In It…

February 6, 2013 in Spiritual Formation with 1 Comment

Our heart is a magnificent, graceful beast. The muscle that pumps blood through our bodies, with its intricate series of trapdoors and valves fed by electrical charges tightly controlled and released so that everything happens in tandem. The heart is like poetry, every word in its place. It is like music, cresting and falling in all the proper places to pull emotions out of us like glad little splinters.

That’s not the heart I’m talking about, however.

The heart I’m talking about is the engine – the driver and catalyst for everything we do – that the Greeks called the “seat of our motivations.” It’s where our treasure is, the place that overflows into our speech, the place where both evil and goodness tangle in battle every millisecond of our breathing lives. The heart as a concept, a humanness, and a life-shaping agent is what I’m talking about.

The largest lights in the life of following Jesus are energized and fed by the heart. The heart gets its intel from our minds, the way we see the world and conceive of reality, but the heart moves us to act on it.

In other words, it’s fine to be intellectually supportive of the idea of God but if it does not form and inform our motivations then it is trivia and has little value.

For many of us, the reason there isn’t the fulfillment and hope that Jesus promises for His followers – rivers of living water, life and life to the full, light instead of darkness, etc. – is because they are imprisoned in the realm of our ideas. They haven’t made the 1.75 foot journey from our head to our heart where they become fiery cheerleaders beginning for us to advance into the fray.

As a kid, I was fully intoxicated by the live-action Spider Man television show. Our local station, TV23, ran a contest and you sent in a postcard for a random drawing to win a real Spider-Man suit. Obviously, my mind raced with pictures of a full-body costume and the ability to shoot tension-ready webs from my wrists. Wisdom now greets me – this was 1982, the technology had not yet caught up with my imagination.

I watched the end of the show every day – leaving behind sunny days and other beautiful life-giving activities – to see if I had won. It was not to be. Obviously the memory still stands in the gallery of my mind, a bit of disappointment and a bit of naivete but ultimately it was my heart that struggled. I had shaped my life around that suit, feeling it over me as I fought crime and villany in my neighborhood.

My heart was in it for the win, and my motivations followed.

Reading through the Proverbs, those nitty-gritty life teachings sharp enough to slice through our homegrown common sense and allow that beautiful muse Wisdom to slip into our reality. Proverbs 2:1-8 is about the quest, the longing, and the desire for wisdom which we now see in the teachings and life of Jesus. However, the heart is not absent:

“…make your ear attentive to wisdom, and inclining your heart to understanding…if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures - then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Prov. 2:3, 4 NRSV)

Is it possible that we’ve lost the ability to know and see God because, quite simply, our heart isn’t in it?

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