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

This Summer of our Discontent

When is it appropriate to paraphrase a Shakespeare quote to describe an entire quarter of a year (eg: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun [or son] of York," . Richard III")?  That's an easy one to answer.  It's when the summer that you are occupying is completely filled with discontenting events.  When the discontents of a time period outweigh the contents of a time period.  And this summer in Colorado Springs (the summer of 2012) simply takes the cake.  In the six weeks since Star and I moved here, this poor state and the community we live in has experienced;

*  A massive wildfire in which nearly 400 homes were completely destroyed, and thousands of lives
    were displaced (the Waldo Canyon fires)
*  The death of a much beloved pastor in our church (Cliff Anderson)
*  The exit and goodbye of the former Senior Pastor of our church (Jim Singleton)
*  The largest mass shooting in US history happening a little over an hour from here (Aurora)
*  The death of one of our church's staff member's baby, a child still-born to this world
*  And to top it off...flash floods and mud slides that hit, and I mean hit, Colorado Springs last night

This short list is enough to cause even the most frigid Presbyterian to wonder weather there isn't some apocalyptic connection to these events.  What do these stones mean?  Why, in such a brief period of time, have we experienced such upset and tragedy?  Should we all prepare for the second coming, or is this just an extremely long period of "bad luck"?  Are we, like the biblical figure Job, somehow being tested by a preternatural force, or is this just our own merry-go-round and spate of hardships and cruelties?  And so, like the character Gandalf, from J.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" we stare into the fire, and pull at our beards and suck on our professor's pipes, and wonder what in the world is going on...

Of course, psychologists would tell us that what we are experiencing is a phenomenon known as "situational justification."  Situational justification is the fifty-cent term for our tendency as humans to see a pattern of behavior or action, and then ascribe meaning or significance to it.  It's the tendency we experience when we buy a white automobile and then we subsequently notice everyone else's white automobile.  It's what happens to us when a loved one dies, and we are in pain, and then we notice everyone else's pain around us.  So, one tragedy befalls us, the Waldo Canyon fires, and we approach all of life with a tragedy pair of glasses - crisis lenses which look for other tragedies.  Is this what is happening to us?  Maybe, but I'm not totally convinced.

One of the biggest challenges of being a Christ follower is having the burden of not ever knowing "why" life's circumstances befall us.  As the apostle Paul reminds us in the book of Corinthians, "For now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror ('we see through a glass dimly' in the King James); then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Cor. 13:12).  The Greek here is, as always, better.  The Greek word for "glass dimly" is AINIGMATI. AINIGMATI is where we get our word for ENIGMA.  An ENIGMA is that which eludes us.  It is a mystery which we don't know the answer to.  AINIGMATI is also connected to the word, riddle.  Paul is saying the life is a riddle.  Life is an unanswerable puzzle.  But, Paul here is doing more than simply describing the state of our lives, as a question mark, but he is giving us direction.  He is letting us know that we will never "know these things fully". We will never know "why" events such as these happen to us.  Paul might have added the postscript, "you will never know fully, so don't even try to know."

However, being a Christ follower does provide the answers to many of the other questions in life.  For example, we know:

*  "Who" is in charge of all these things - YAHWEH, The Lord God who is One
*  "How" we will get through them - step by step, following God's love and power
*  "What" the purpose of our lives is - to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength
*  "Where" can we access God's power - in loving others, in prayer, in reading scripture

But still, even after this, I would yet like to know why the summer of 2012 has been the way it has for us.  For now, I will have to satiate my curiosity by trusting in God, and reading more Shakespeare.  Because sometimes, "A rose by any other name, would smell as sweet" (Romeo and Juliet)

All For Now,
GB

Forgiveness

This past week, our city, state and nation experienced one of the worst examples of domestic terrorism to happen in our country - the worst example of mass shooting -  in US history.  The events which happened on Thursday night, (7/26 - thankfully not a date which will become a memory piece, unlike, for example 9/11) in Aurora, Colorado will never be erased from our thoughts or minds.

Like all pastors who had to speak into this crisis, on Sunday morning, I struggled on the Thursday night before with what to say to people.  Do, I say that "bad things just happen, and we must learn to live with them?"  "No," I thought to myself, that's too glib.  Do I say that we must, "love the victims with a special intentionality?"  "Yes," I thought to myself, but that's not enough.  So, I decided to focus on the subject of "Evil" itself, and of the "Evil One" the one who plants seeds of division and destruction in the minds of vulnerable and broken people.  "But, even that" I told myself, tends to take too much responsibility away from the perpetrator of the event.  Wasn't he (and his name will remain a noticeable vacancy from this blogpost) a culpable, responsible participant in this terrible act of violence?

Most of all I decided not to talk about the topic of Forgiveness.  As I watched the evening news on Sunday, I saw that several churches in and around Aurora chose to focus on the topic of forgiveness - forgiving the perpetrator, forgiving his terrible act, asking people to begin to forgive the act itself.  When I saw these newscasts, I definitely respected the churches that decided to talk about forgiveness on this day, but at the same time I felt that talking about forgiveness in this setting, and on the quick heels of such a terrible disaster, was, perhaps another example of "missing the mark."

Let me insert here a strong proviso.  I definitely believe in forgiveness!!  I believe that forgiveness is at the center of the Christ following faith.  I believe that Jesus' strong endearment to forgive those who do wrong things to us, "forgive them 7 X 77" is at the heart of the gospel.  I believe that Jesus was correct when he said, "if you go to the temple and you have not forgiven your neighbor, you cannot worship God fully."  Forgiveness is a must.  Forgiveness is at the center of our faith.  Forgiveness is a mandatory dynamic of the Christ following experience.

However, I have also come to learn, in my 12 years of ministry, that forgiveness is not ever as simple as a single act of contrition.  Forgiveness is not the waving of a wand over something to make it so.  Forgiveness is not an act of FIAT that can be bequeathed, like a sentence on a criminal.  Forgiveness is a process.  While forgiveness might be an instant absolute on the part of God, it is always an unfolding event for humans.  Forgiveness is almost always a long journey that involves so many important things.

Dr. David Augsburger, one of my favorite all time professors at Fuller Theological Seminary talked in a class I took from him, about the steps involved in a true act of forgiveness.  These include:

*  Coming together by both parties in an open, honest and forthright communication about the act of wrongdoing which has occurred.
*  A mutual recognition of wrongdoing
*  A continued dialog about the wrongdoing
*  Time and a sense of space between the act of wrongdoing itself and the process of forgiveness.
*  A form of compensation or restitution, or restorative justice on the part of both parties

Augsburger once said to our class of D.Min students something I will not soon forget.  He said, "Sometimes the worst thing a pastor can do on a Sunday morning is to stand before his/her parishioners and say, 'We JUST need to forgive those who have done wrong to us."  Augsburger said, "There is just no JUST about it.  Forgiveness is a long process of restitution and justice and mercy and grace."

But we should pray for the process of forgiveness, and we should recognize that all things are possible in Christ - even forgiving despicable acts that are on their own face - completely unforgivable!

All For Now,
GB

But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For...

I used to love to fly fish, back when I lived in Boise, Idaho.  The truth is, what I really loved was the experience of standing in the middle of a river.  I would love to go out, in the middle of the week sometime, when the temperatures were just beginning to soar into the mid-90's, and I would step from a dry dusty bank, into a cool gurgling brook.  And there I would stand, right in the middle.  On the other side of the river was another shore, and yet I didn't really feel I wanted to totally cross.  The other bank was too far, too hard for me to cross into.  Behind me was the shore I had just come from.  Before stepping into the river, I was usually a bit stressed out from school, tired from a long day, burdened by whatever was on my mind.  So, I didn't want to go back, because that would mean the fishing trip would be over, and I would be returning to where I had come from.  But there I was in the middle of the river.  In those days it was almost as if I had;

One Foot in the Wilderness, the Other in the Promised Land.

One of my favorite songs of all time is the rock ballad, by U2, "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."  The song lyrics reflect mournfully about the strange juxtaposition in this life between having all of the things that we think we want (or ever wanted), and somehow feeling slightly unfulfilled.  The lyrics go; I have climbed highest mountain, I have run through the fields, Only to be with you, Only to be with you, I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, These city walls, Only to be with you, But I still haven't found what I'm looking for, But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.  In these lyrics, the singer Bono seems to be recognizing the challenge in this life, of never really getting to the place where you want to be, deep down into your heart.  It is as if Bono is reflecting on the challenge of having,

One Foot in the Wilderness, the Other in the Promised Land.

There are many holidays which I love.  You can't beat the fourth of July for a family BBQ.  Thanksgiving is wonderful when you are in a place that is snowy and cold.  Easter is so pregnant with freshness and newness.  However, truth be told, my favorite holiday in the year is the Christian season of Advent.  Advent are the five weeks which proceed Christmas.  Advent comes from the latin word, Adventus, which means, "to wait for."  The main concept of advent is that we are all waiting for the savior to come into the world, the baby Jesus.  The reason I love advent is because it is not quite Christmas, and it is not Thanksgiving either.  It is somewhere in-between.  Advent is a time where we have;

One Foot in the Wilderness, the Other in the Promised Land.

During the long war years of World War II, in Great Britain, the Medieval English Oxford Don and Professor (and would be theologian)  C.S. Lewis gave great talks to huge crowds about Christianity.  One of C.S. Lewis' main talks, and one which was made into a great movie was, "Shadowlands."  C.S. Lewis' talk on Shadowlands is an explanation of Plato's cave, the shadows which were reflected on the wall of our lives.  Plato was talking about the ineffable existence of life.  C.S. Lewis said, "We live in the Shadowlands.  Over the brow of a hill, around the bend in the road, what we seek after, eludes us.  We have not yet attained it yet."  C.S. Lewis seemed to be referring to the fact that all of us have;

One Foot in the Wilderness, the Other in the Promised Land.

This coming week, I will be preaching on the crossing of the Jordan River by the Israelites.  For 440 years, the Israelites had had hopes and dreams about crossing into the promised land.  And now they were about to do it.  The Lord told the Israelite priests to go before the people and carry the ark of the covenant with them.  As the priests crossed into the river, the Bible tells us that it instantly dried up, by some great miracle, and the people walked on dry ground.  When the priests reached the middle of the river, we are told, that they stopped, they lifted up the ark above their heads.  And then they praised God.  Moments later, they would build an altar in the middle of the river.  And there they worshipped God.  In that moment, the Israelites knew what it was to have;

One Foot in the Wilderness, the Other in the Promised Land

And so do we.  The balance of these two places in our lives is what it means to be human, and what it means to be a Christ follower.  We are not in the wilderness anymore, and we are not in the promised land yet either.

All For Now,
GB

Love People One Person At a Time

About eight years ago, when my brother Jamie and I were about to start a new church development in Paso Robles, California, we were insanely eager to learn from any church that was having success.  To this end we read all of Robert Schuller's church leadership books, we plowed through The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, we drank in all of Bill Hybels' leadership tomes. We couldn't get enough.  Our basic premise in researching these churches was that; 1.  We loved the Presbyterian Church, 2. We knew it was dying and needed to change, 3.  We were HE - (double hockey stick) bent on doing whatever was necessary to save it.

In the process of this learning binge we also met with many successful large church pastors.  One of whom was a pastor from a suburb of Sacramento, we'll call him Jim, who had started a church that we'll call, "Cyprus Brook," (even though the real name of the church is much better than that).  Cyprus Brook had grown to 6,000 members in just six years.  The truth is that we had waited about a month or two to get on Jim's calendar.  And then, when the vaunted day of meeting was about to occur, his secretary called and cancelled, and we had to wait another month.  So, it was with no uncertain degree of anticipation (and a little agitation) that my brother and I waited for a face to face with Jim.

We drove up to the church that day, and waited in the church coffee shop.  The appointed time for the meeting came and went, the time seeming to drip through the hourglass, like a bad rerun of "Days of our Lives" (has there ever been a good one?)  Finally Jim came.  He was wearing a rumpled shirt, and torn shorts, and flip flops.  He was kind and completely unassuming.  He had a boyish flair, not "Dead Poet's Society," but more, "Easy Rider."  But it didn't matter what Jim's appearance was, or what the differences in our styles of church were, or what the varying flavor of ministry was at that church, Jamie and I were focussed on figuring out what we could from him.  We wanted the recipe to the Gordian knot of church growth, and church success.  And so, we asked him what it was.  This is what he said.  "It's simple, just...

Love People One Person At a Time

Jamie and I furiously wrote those seven words on our pads, clearly expecting that more important, more complex, more nuanced information was yet to emerge from this modern day totem and prophet of all things of clerical success.  "Good," I said, "And what else...."  Jim said, "That's it, let me repeat it...

Love People One Person At a Time!

Jim was clearly a little exasperated that this simple but oh so important dictum was not permeating our grey matter in a more effective way.  So, he clarified.  "Look," there are a lot of things you need to do to grow a church.  You need to have a good name.  You need to go out and hang out at stores and have something that people need, like drug prevention therapy for moms and dads of teens.  You need to hand out Bibles at every service.  You need to have a facility that can facilitate growth.  And a lot of other stuff.  But that stuff all fits into place, if you get this one thing right....and let me repeat,

Love People One Person At a Time!!!

"I've got to go," said Jim.  "Good luck in your new church."  And with that, Jim was gone.

So, I have had the chance to reflect on this sagacious piece of advice for about 8 years now.  And I have come to see the true wisdom in what Jim was offering.  So, this is how I have tried to love people one person at a time in my ministry.  When people are talking to me, I try to be fully present in that conversation, even if it is only for 5 seconds.  When new people come to the church, I try to remember their names, and then I follow up with a phone call soon there after.  When people are hurting in church, I try to lay hands on them right then and there and pray for them.  When I am writing a sermon, I don't write it to the masses, I write it for a handful of people in church, who's names I know, and who's problems I understand.  I have tried to see the Christ following faith as not a group effort, not a mass movement, but an individual exercise in living out the gospel, in unique and REAL ways.  So, I really have tried to;

Love People One Person At a Time.

You Should Too,
All For Now,
GB