Thin Places

Just a strong caveat before I begin this week's blogpost - my Free-Kirk (definition: very conservative Presbyterian Scottish Reformed theology), Scottish grandmother who is now in heaven would not like this one.  She would have been very suspicious of all things related to "Celtic Spirituality."  I am about to write about Celtic Spirituality.

So, Sorry grandma...

Recently, while reading Tony Campolo's book, "Letters to a Young Evangelical" (A good book, but be prepared to argue out loud with it vociferously at times), I came across the term - "Thin Places".  Thin Places, is a term derived from Celtic Spirituality which describes a place or a state of being where God is particularly connected with an individual.  So called, "Thin Places" are places where the distance between heaven and earth are relatively thin, where there seems to be a closer connection between God and God's followers.  In the words of a pastor who is more familiar with the term than I am, “A thin place,” is a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. It’s a place where we can sense the divine more readily.” 

Certain characters from the Bible seem to have experienced thin places during certain moments of their lives.  Moses seemed to experience a thin place on the top of the mountain while speaking with God through a burning bush.  Abraham seemed to experience a thin place when three visitors encountered him in the middle of the wilderness, and told him he and Sara were about to have a child.  Mary, the mother of God, experienced a thin place when an angel of the Lord met her and told her, "not to be afraid," that she was to be with child, and that his child was going to be the savior of the world.  One might argue that everywhere Jesus walked in the first century land of Judah was, in itself, a thin place.

As I have ministered to people over these past 12 years of ordained call, I have witnessed many people who were in the midst of thin places.  Most often, people seem most connected to God when they are in the midst of, or when they have just passed through some great spiritual test.  The death of a loved one can be an example of just such a spiritual test.  The loss of a job, the transition to a new city, the beginning of a new venture, the ending of a life chapter, the birth of a new child, the movement from work to retirement can all be examples of thin places, where God seems especially close, or rather, we seem especially close to God.

At the risk of using the most cliched story ever told, the famous story of the man who walked along the beach and saw two footsteps in the sand, and then the period where he saw only only set of footsteps in the sand, and then wondered why God had abandoned him at that moment.  And then God saying, "That's when I was closest to you, I was carrying you, those footsteps were my own."  This is a perfect example of a thin place, where God is literally closer to us, when we need Him than ever before.

The reason I am writing this blogpost, I suppose, is because I feel that I am in just such a thin place in my spiritual walk right now.  I feel like my heart is a great hubble telescope, searching the heavens for images, thoughts, ideas, concepts, meaning and theological truth.  And, like the hubble telescope, my heart is picking up sooo many rich ideas and concepts and truths, I feel which are being sent to me by God.

So, I'm in a thin place.  This thin place will not last forever, but I'm going to make the most of it while I am in it.

Again, sorry grandma,

All for Now,
GB

Do You Love Yourself?

A week or so ago, I came home from work, with my briefcase slung over one shoulder - my clothes were rumpled and creased from a long day at work.  My four year old daughter greeted me at the door with a hug (sometimes leave it to Beaver isn't just a TV show).  After she hugged me, Haley looked intently up into my eyes and said, "Daddy....do you love yourself?"  It was sort of one of those deep and jarring moments a parent sometimes has around an awkward question.  I might have been less thrown off by my daughter's question if she had asked, "Daddy...will you tell me where babies come from?"  Something about Haley's question pierced deeply into my soul.  Do I love myself?  Is it ok to love myself?  Can my daughter tell that I don't always love myself?  Is it that obvious?  How did she get so smart?  I tried to recover with a similar and parental retort; "Yes, I think I do Haley.  Do you love yourself?"  And Haley shot back with an instant smile and a "YES...daddy."

But let me put the same piercing question to you today.  Do you love yourself?  If you are like me the question meets you with a strange mix of of self-consciousness and embarrassment.  But why?  We are told by psychologists that unhealthy self love can develop into a kind of self-adoration (or narcissism) [Actually narcissism the way it is classically understood by the DSMIV is not a developed personality trait but an ingrained behavior disorder].  Loving ourselves, as we often think about it seems strange and aberrant.  However, the Bible is clear that loving ourselves is a central part of our ability to love God and to love others.

When Jesus is asked the trick question by the pharisees, "What is the most important law?" [Side note, there were two separate arms of pharisaism/sadducism in the first century.  There were those who felt that the first four commandments were the most important, those relating to God.  And there were those who felt the second set, 5-10 were the most important, those relating to humans.  Jesus does not fall for this trick.]  Jesus response was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength," and the second is like it, "love your neighbor."  The final piece is the one that relates to the love of ourselves...."love your neighbor AS yourself."  The Greek word for AS here is tough to pin down, but the notion is that we should love our neighbors "IN THE SAME WAY AS" we love ourselves.  And the fact that Jesus suggests we should love God in same way that we should love our neighbor (in like manner), the suggestion is even more stark.  We should love ourselves in the same way that we love God.

And of course, the implication here is just as startling.  If we don't love ourselves in the same way, or with the same amount of "heart, soul, mind and strength" as we love God and we love our neighbor, we are not hitting the mark of perfection that God seeks from us.  Actually, one fundamental form of fallenness for humans is the inability to love ourselves as we love God and we love our neighbor.  Great, I now have another thing to ask forgiveness for, not loving myself as God wants me to love myself.

About an hour later, I found my daughter Haley playing with her stuffed animals in her room.  I came in and I asked, "Haley, can I ask you a question?"  She said, "yes,"  "Do you love yourself?"  Haley said, "Daddy, I already answered that question.  Yes I do."  Quite right!  Multiple answers to the question of whether we love ourselves or not might imply that we are somehow insecure about the answer, and that we need to work on that healthy God given form of self love.  And so, I will just write it down as a beginning point of self-discovery...

I LOVE MYSELF!

There I feel better...

All For Now,
GB

Refocus on the Family

For this week's blog post, I am inserting a section of a new book published by my friend, Jim Daly, CEO and Director of Focus on the Family.  Jim's book is full of great insights about how evangelicals should engage the larger culture on issues that we hold dear and upon which we have strong convictions.  Jim kindly uses an illustration from my own ministry (enclosed here) to help illustrate how loving Christ followers need to interact with people who come from all different areas of dysfunction and brokenness.

The following incident actually occurred at Highlands Church while I was serving as founding pastor there in about 2009.  The example represents the kind of church that I feel God is calling us all to be - loving and full of mercy!

Excerpted from “ReFocus: Living a Life That Reflects God’s Heart” (Zondervan)

The law was brought in so that the trespass
might increase. But where sin increased,
grace increased all the more.
ROMANS 5:20

The Reverend Graham J. Baird is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. Prior to coming to Colorado, Graham served as the founding pastor of Highlands Church in Paso Robles, California. The ministry started with twenty-five people in a drive-in movie theater and has since grown to over two thousand weekly attenders. Graham’s philosophy has been to pull down the barriers and make it easier for those wanting to come to church to learn about God. He has done a good job. Wherever he’s been a pastor, whether in rural California or the front range of the Rocky Mountains, he has led with a straightforward ministerial motto: “No perfect people allowed”—pastor included.

During his time in Paso Robles, Graham encountered a variety of family scenarios, including a lesbian couple married in a state where same-sex marriage was legal. They began coming to his church and eventually had twins via in vitro fertilization. He had an opportunity to lovingly share the Bible’s perspective on human sexuality. They continued to attend. When the couple asked to have their children baptized, he had a dilemma on his hands. According to his Reformed theology, the baptism of a child does not “save” a person but represents a commitment from the Christian parent to raise the child—or children—in the faith. Graham explained that given the couple’s same-sex relationship, he couldn’t ask them to present the child and make that commitment since they weren’t actually members of the church. They were disappointed. Graham asked why they didn’t simply find a church that would accommodate their request. Their response was powerful. “This is the only church where we have felt loved in,” they told him. The children were later presented for baptism by their grandparents, who were members of the church.

Graham went on to explain what I believe strongly—that people know very quickly whether or not they are loved. The fact that this couple continued to attend—even though the church’s theology with regard to sexuality was at odds with their personal actions—suggests that Highlands Church truly loved them for a variety of reasons, but especially for this one: They know that nobody is beyond the reach of God.

All For Now,

GB

Spiritual Rhythm

This past week I discovered a new Spiritual truth about life - rhythm is more important than rest!

So, because I have a new 7 week old baby in my life, and because I am new on the job at First Pres as it's new Senior Pastor, I have been sort of "scrambling" over the past month or so to figure out how to juggle it all (I hasten to add that it's been a fun juggle!).  My regular day off is Friday, but because I have had several weekend work related tasks on Friday and Saturday, this past week I took Monday off instead.  Again, I figured that it would be easy to change one day for another, to trade out one slot with another slot, to switch days off, move them around, like cards on a poker table.  What I found, of course, was exactly the opposite.  I found that that since I usually take days off on Friday, my system, by body was used to Friday as a day off, and since I usually work on Monday, my system is used to Monday to work.  So, even though I working on Friday, my system was really resting, and even though I was resting on Monday, my system was actually working.  The rhythm of my life had superimposed itself on the attempt to find rest in my life.  I discovered the need for

Spiritual Rhythm!

For the past five years, our country has been dealing with a financial crisis like no other it has experienced since the Great Depression.  The Harvard economist, Nial Fergason, has called it the "Great Recession."  One of the things that has been so hard for American economists, strike that - world economists, in dealing with this crisis has been the unpredictability of it all.  No one guessed this would happen.  Economists have called it, "A rogue wave" of financial trouble.  "Rogue wave" is a term borrowed from oceanographic study - RV's happen in the ocean when great huge waves come along that nobody can predict or pinpoint on a weather chart or map.  Nobody knows where they come from, how they originate, how they formed.  The hard part about both economic rogue waves and real ones is that they are out of sink with the rhythms of natural weather phenomenon.  When rhythm disappears, so does a sense of balance, equilibrium, wholeness  - SHALOM, SHABBAT.

SHABBAT is a good word to use here.  SHABBAT (the phonetic variant of the Hebrew word for rest), was something that we learn about for the first time in the book of Genesis.  SHABBAT is something that God takes for himself after creating the world for six whole days:  "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast away.  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested (SHABBATED) from all his work.  And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested (SHABBATED) from all the work of creating that he had done," (Gen. 2:2-3).  There are several fascinating features to God's SHABBAT.  First, notice that God's SHABBAT is totally disconnected from His need for rest.  God doesn't need to rest, God is all powerful - omnipotent.  However, God does need rhythm.  Even God needs rhythm!  Second, SHABBAT is a holy experience.  The Bible calls the seventh day - holy, because God made it so.  SHABBAT, rhythm then is a holy experience of our lives.  Finally, there is the rhythmic nature of SHABBAT - it must occur every seventh day, on the seventh day, like clockwork for it to work.  The moment that the SHABBAT is invaded, so also is the holiness of that moment.

Are you tired and depleted right now?  Is the pace of your life overtaking the presence of God in your life?  Are you too busy?  The answer for me (to that question) is an indefatigable yes.  However, what I have learned is that much more than the need for rest in my life is the need for re-established rhythm.

All for Now,
GB

Imagining God

One of my favorite things to do in life is to watch and listen to my four year old daughter, Haley, play.  Haley can spend hours enacting dialogue with her stuffed animals, rubber duckies, or whatever toy she is working with at the time.  The dialogue usually goes something like this, "You're a very nice little kitty," "Oh, thank you Mr. Dog, I like you too," "Do you want to go out and play Mr Dog?"  "No, I think I will stay inside here where it's warm,"  "Oh, ok, I'll stay with you..." "Ok, let's stay together," and so on and so on.  What is fascinating to me is the thin line that is created, in Haley's mind, during these imaginary conversations, between reality and fiction.  Haley actually believes there is some dynamic of life in her stuffed animals, above and beyond their cotton filling and fabric shapes.  The actual act of play brings animation to objects which were once only soft pillowy toys.

One of the most important Christian writers of the past 100 years is C.S. Lewis.  Lewis, a one time agnostic on all things religious, would become one of the greatest apologists of his time, writing some of the most significant defenses of the Christian faith; "Mere Christianity", "The Great Divorce," "Surprised by Joy," and "Screwtape Letters," - to name a few.  However, Lewis' greatest and most impressionable contribution to the faith is in his fictional children's stories, "The Narnia Tales."  These symbolic tableau's which include characters like Aslan the lion, Tumnus the fawn, Ent trees and Centaurs (half men, half horses), are a tapestry of imagination.  When once asked what the deeper meaning of these metaphorical sojourns was, Lewis said, "They're just stories, pure and simple."  But Lewis knew what he was doing.  Lewis knew that a very important key to our faith, and certainly from our development at an early age, is the process of:

Imagining God

Essential to our faith is the ability to, as Lewis might say, "close our eyes, and think about a time and a place, a land which is just within grasp of our own, and yet, millions of miles away.  To paint pictures with our thoughts about snowy winters, and white witches and lamp posts on the edges of wooded areas, and castles called Cair Paravel, and deserts like Turkish delight."  Lewis knew that children have a profound ability to suspend reality, and therefore contemplate new realities, through the medium of imagination.  That children have the ability to begin:

Imagining God

Now, right off the bat I must clarify what I am saying here.  When I say that we must "Imagine God," I do not mean that God does not exist in a very real and concrete way.  God does, to be sure.  God is not an imagined being, but a real one.  God exists in the here and now, and the way back then, and the eternal future.  However, the process of thinking about a reality that exists beyond our reality, a heaven that is above our hearts, a kingdom that is beyond our grasp - and yet exists in actuality, is an essential dynamic of a person's faith journey.

Jesus himself tapped into this human ability to imagine heaven, the kingdom of God, through many of his stories and parables.  Some of my favorite imaginations of Jesus are; "The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed."  When Jesus said that the kingdom was LIKE a mustard seed, he wasn't using a literal comparison, but an imaginary one.  He was literally asking his audience, and us, to close our eyes, and to think about a kingdom that is LIKE a seed.  Another image of the kingdom was a coin.  Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is like a little coin that a woman lost, and spent all day, cleaning the house so she could find it."  Again, Jesus is asking his audience, and us, to imagine a place or a state of reality that is LIKE a woman looking for a coin.

Imagining God

Jesus also knew that for some strange reason, as people grow older, they begin to lose their ability to imagine, and therefore sometimes lose their ability to BELIEVE in a reality that is above and beyond the reality of our own time and place.  This is why Jesus said, "to such as these (children) is the kingdom of heaven."

So, have you imagined God today?  What does He look like?  What wooded ravine, covered with snow and lampposts is He waiting for you to meet with him in the middle of?

All For Now,
GB

    

Ease On Down the Road

When my family moved from California to Colorado, we decided to begin a process of consolidating a lot of the "stuff" of our lives (moves are great at helping a person to see what's important and what's not important).  To this end, our family gave a lot of "stuff" away.  We brought with us only one coat, rather than two.  We gave away pots and pans that hadn't been used, and toys that hadn't been played with.   Before leaving town, a friend of mine gave me the very good advice to; "put all that you own in the middle of the room, look at it, ponder it, if you haven't used any of this stuff for the past year or so, you probably don't need it - get rid of it."  And so, it was in this vein of "downsizing" that we sold one of our cars and came out to Colorado with just one car.

When we arrived in Colorado, my ever so generous father-in-law told me that it would be ok with him if I borrowed his early 1980's, door dented, cassette playing, gas fume smelling, sometimes starting, electric window busted Mercedez Benz - at least until we got another car.  And so, for the past two months or so, I have been driving my father-in-law's old jalopy to work and back every day - and I have to say, I love it.

I love the way the door sort of slams when you close it, rather than the quiet waft of a newer car's doors.  I love the smell of gas and oxygen that marinates your nostrils when driving it (I guess, "I love the smell of gas in the morning...").  I love the sound system that buzzes.  I love steering wheel that takes a workout to turn.  I love the cup holder that folds down out of the door like a tray table in an antique Soviet aircraft.  But most of all, I love how slowly it drives.  My father-in-law's old car maximizes it's driving potential between 40 miles per hour and 60 miles per hour.  Beyond that, the wheels start to fly off their axis.  So, for at least the past two months, I have;

Eased on Down the Road!

Now, why do I tell you all of this?  Because of this.  As much as I have enjoyed my counter-cultural approach to driving an older car, I have found that many people around me are quite upset about it.  The times people have honked at me, for my slowness in changing lanes has been comical.  The number of people who have flipped me off on the free-way for not driving fast enough I cannot count.  The monster trucks who have sped by me while racing their engines and throwing their cigarette butts out the window are too numerous to count.  One guy actually passed me by the other day, while rolling down his window and saying, "Why don't you just retire old man." (I suppose the man thought that because I was driving an older car, that I must be an old man.  Really, this experience has given me new appreciation for the lack of respect that senior citizens in our society receive...)

But here's the thing.  I believe that Jesus calls each of us to a similar "counter-cultural" living experience as I have had while driving an "out of sink" car.  First of all, we are not supposed to buy new stuff all the time, as Christ followers.  We are called to a life of good stewardship of God's resources.  We are not supposed to mind whether our cars, houses, clothes, or lives are "up with" the latest fashions around us.  And most of all, we are not supposed to be living our lives at the same pace as the rest of the world.  We really are called to;

Ease on Down the Road.

And here's the thing.  Other people around us will be bothered by this lifestyle choice of ours.  Other people around us will wonder why we are not buying the latest fashions, focussed on the same things, driving as fast as the rest of the world.  Really, I am not kidding about this at all.  Your choice to metaphorically drive your car, family, house, and life slower than anyone else will really perturb the masses.  It will happen.  Trust me.  But who cares.  For me, it has been a renewed joy of life, to discover once again, the effortless peace that is found in;

Easing on Down the Road!!

All for Now,
GB

Made By God

One of the central doctrines of the Christian faith is the concept of "Imago Dei" - Made in the Image of God, or more precisely, "made in the likeness of God".  While different faith traditions have taken different positions on this central faith tenant, (eg: Catholicism and Protestantism have dueled it out over the years as to the precise meaning of this doctrine.  Roman Catholics have historically made a distinction between certain supernatural gifts of Adam, in addition to his natural human ones), this doctrine, boiled down to it's most reduced form is the concept that when God created human beings, he "made them (women and men), in God's own image."  God put a little bit of Himself into each human being when he made them.

Two weeks ago, my wife Star and I had the amazing experience of having a brand new baby girl - Sheena Skye Baird.  And in so doing, my understanding of Imago Dei (in addition to many other thousands of things) has changed forever.  You see, I used to always think of Imago Dei from the standpoint of humans.  That is, "wow, it's it so nice that God decided to put a bit of himself into humans when he made them."  And, "God must have thought a lot of His creation to give us God's own features."  Being the father of a new little baby, however, I am beginning to understand this doctrine in a different way.  I am seeing it from the side of the creator - so to speak.

When I look at Sheena's eyes and eyebrows, I say to myself, "Wow, how wonderful (and strange) those are my eyes and eyebrows."  When I look at Sheena's tiny hands and her distinct arches on her feet I say, "Gosh, those are really a lot like my own hands, and those are the same arches I have on my feet."  In short, my daughter looks a lot like me (it's not her fault, of course, but it's the way the DNA seems to have worked out).  And I must say, as egotistical as it may sound, that it is deeply gratifying to see aspects of my own being reflected in someone else.  In a sense, it fills me with joy to see another little being made in my own image - Sheena made from my own IMAGO DEI.  It fact, it may be one of the greatest joys I have ever felt to see the congruity between my own life and the life of another tiny little human being.

So, this is what I wonder.  Does God take a similar degree of joy from seeing congruity between Himself and His creation?  Does God take a similar deep gratification in the idea that the beings that He created, and continues to create, are likenesses of Himself?  Does God look down from the proverbial heavens and say, "Wow, those are my hands, and those are my feet" on those little creatures down there.  More to the point (since we do not believe God still exhibits anthropomorphic features), does God look down from the heavens and say, "Incredible, that person down there has the same heart for poor people, sick people, uneducated people, lost people as I do."  "Fantastic, that being down there has the same generosity I do when it comes to giving the things of life away."  Does it give God joy to see His own image reflected in humanity?

And is the reverse of this possible as well?  Does God look down from the heavens sometimes and say,  "Gosh, look at those beings down there who's hearts do not look like mine at all.  How disappointing."  Does God cast His gaze upon humanity sometimes and say,  "Wow, look at those humans down there who's minds do not look at all like my mind.  Why are they filling their minds with such unGodly ideas?"  And does this disparity between humanity and God grieve God's heart to the point of breaking?  Does the distance that we create between our core selves and God's core self cause God to feel deeply sad about the whole endeavor of creation itself?

And did God, in human form, come down from the heavens to become an Image of Himself, and image of us, and live with us, and die like us, and come back to life again for us, to retrieve that part of Himself which was forever lost because of things that we, his human creation have done to separate ourselves from the love of God?

Of course he did!

All For Now,
GB