Far out at sea, at close of day,
A lonely albatross flew by.
We watched him as he soared away-
A speck against the glowing sky!
Thought I: this lordly feathered one
Is trusting in the faithfulness
Of wind and tide, of star and sun;
And shall I trust the Maker less?

O soul of mine, spread wide thy wings;
Mount up; push out with courage strong!
And- like a bird which, soaring, sings-
Let heaven vibrate with thy song!
SPREAD WIDE THY WINGS, O SOUL OF MINE,
For God will ever faithful be;
His love shall guide thee; winds divine
Shall waft thee o'er this troubled sea.

Though dangers threaten in the night,
Though tides of death below thee roll,
Though storms attend thy homeward flight,
SPREAD WIDE THY PINIONS, O MY SOUL!
Though shadows veil the distant shore,
And distant seems the hallowed dawn,
Spread wide thy pinions- evermore
Spread wide thy pinions, and press on.

-Robert Crumley (Springs in the Valley)

a christmas hmmm

This is incredible. My mom forwarded this to me...and I was moved to say the least. What are your thoughts?

Buy nothing for Christmas

December 5th, 2009
This is something different. It’s similar to the Advent Conspiracy, but I like it because it’s Canadian! What can I say?! I’ve been ecouraged by some of the Canadian sites popping up these days (makes me feel less alone in cyber land lol). Anyhow, my cousin sent to me via facebook. I was looking into it and thought it was interesting. What are your thoughts on it?

Buy Nothing Christmas is a national initiative started by Canadian Mennonites who offer a prophetic “no” to the patterns of over-consumption of middle-class North Americans. They are inviting Christians (and others) all over Canada to join a movement to de-commercialize Christmas and re-design a Christian lifestyle that is richer in meaning, smaller in impact upon the earth, and greater in giving to people less-privileged.

This is an Advent calendar that has a bite to it. On each day of December leading up to Christmas, count the appropriate privilege/blessing and pay the fine. Send the money to a group that fights poverty.

1. 10 ¢ for every hot water tap in your house
2. 75 ¢ for every vehicle your family owns
3. 5 ¢ for every pair of jeans you own
4. 25 ¢ if your family subscribes to the newspaper
5. 5 ¢ for every bed in your house
6. 3 ¢ for every /beauty makeup item you own
7. 3 ¢ for every pair of footwear
8. 3 ¢ for every light switch in your house
9. 20 ¢ for every tub/shower
10. 10 ¢ for every flush toilet
11. 2 ¢ for every bar/dispenser of soap
12. 15 ¢ if you have dishes to eat off of
13. 15 ¢ if you have cooking pots in your cupboards
14. 5 ¢ for every window in your house
15. 10 ¢ for every outside door
16. 20 ¢ for every television in your house
17. 5 ¢ for every magazine subscription
18. 25 ¢ if your family has more than 25 CD’s (music or video)
19. 5 ¢ for every meal you had meat with this past week
20. 10 ¢ for every non-water beverage you drank yesterday
21. 25 ¢ if you have a snow blower or a gas/electric lawn mower
22. 3 ¢ for every item of hair care stuff
23. 15 ¢ for every bedroom in your house
24. 5 ¢ for every blanket in your house
25. 15 ¢ for every gift you received this Christmas

From http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/

check out their catalogue: http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/catalogue/index.html It’s pretty neat! If nothing else, it sure makes me thankful and feel truly blessed for all that we have!

Jesus' Table...

Have you ever thought about Jesus’ first public expression of who He was to the people of Israel? Me being a ‘why’ person and all...chuckle:

Why a wedding?
Why that miracle?
Why the vagueness of purpose?

It is fascinating that the introduction of the Good News would begin to unfold at a wedding. Tracer is a photographer...and her life is weddings. And there is one thing that has struck me as I have looked through the hundreds of pictures she has taken.


A wedding is a microcosm of a life. It paints us a picture of life as it was, is and could be. Even today, amidst the dismal divorce and disaster rate, it is a clear expression of the hope of what is and could be! It is an expression of Love. Life. Community. Family. Faith, or lack of it.
A wedding has all the pieces of life. The misfits. The beautiful. The dysfunction. The joy of love. The old and young. The newly wed and maybe the nearly dead.

It’s here, in a celebration of one of the our basic human rituals that Jesus begins to reveal Himself. As if to say, ‘this is what I'm all about: All of life...every speck of it. This is where I want you to live life...and give life.’

This passion that Jesus had for feasting, for celebrating, for welcoming the unwelcomed, for being thrusting himself into the middle of the reality of our humanness weaves its way throughout the gospels. It is in these very settings that Jesus' followers would learn that missional may not be some arduous journey to a far off foreign land...that perhaps the longest journey maybe just sitting across the table of a stranger or a neighbour; the sick or those how seemingly have no need; the poor, and the oppressed or our families.

Whom you eat with defines whom you won't eat with. With Jesus it never appears to be a ‘social’ program...it is radical, scandalous, outrageous...it's the Kingdom. It is the servant returning to his master's table with unopened invitations and list of excuses, and the master sending him out again. This time the servant heads to back alleys filled with syringes, skid row hotels, park benches, under bridges...any where, so his masters table will be filled to overflowing. All are welcomed and all are invited. Here at this open table, we discover the world upside down...where suddenly the host is the guest, and the guest the host. Where the host is blessed more than the guest. Jesus entered into the other's world, and let them invite his followers as their house guests. In that way grace, life, healing, restoration could be poured back and forth. Wow. Does my heart ring with that.

Another story of outrageous food and faith is the feeding of the 5000. This table is not constructed of wood and four legs...it is ‘He’ standing on a hillside with 5 small barley loaves, and 2 fish, raising arms giving thanks and blessing. Two miracles here, one that 5000 people were fed...and the second, that 5000 people shared this table. There is the outrageous reality that in faith, that we often find surplus when we welcome those from outside our boundaries and borders to share what is ours.

These stories could be the reality of what this ‘missional’ conversation is really all about. It is sacramental living. Not as a ritual, but as the redemptive imagination that is spiritual truth. It is sad, in a sense, that we have ritualized the bread and wine. This ritual of who's in and who's not...who's welcome and who's not. I wonder if Jesus imagined it to be that. Jesus’ table, the meals of bread and fish always reflected the Kingdom...surplus, and food that fed the poor. Jesus’ table always reflected the truth of the Kingdom, the truth of what missional should be about...redemption, restoration, justice, community...the reordering of a new creation.

And how can we forget the table stories after Jesus' resurrection. Jesus cooking fish on a charcoal fire on the beach. The ultimate picture of failure in the disciples having gone back to their old jobs fishing on the lake and being plumb out of luck. Jesus calls out from the shore, telling them to drop their nets on the other side of the boat. They haul in an incredible draft of fish. Peter seeing his friend/messiah, wades through the water to shore. On the beach Jesus invites, welcomes, and cooks fish for his friends on an open fire. He turns to Peter and says, ‘feed....’ And I'm not talking just feeding food, a meal in the soup kitchen, I'm talking about feeding them the incarnational reality of the life of Jesus. In other words go and invite and celebrate.

To live in the neighbourhood of Jesus...is to live and believe that all the world is welcome...to go and to come. If the world is welcome to Jesus, if my neighbour is welcome to Jesus, then every living moment is a door of hope into which ‘other’s’ are welcome.

I love this quote that I heard from Ed Stetzer a couple of years ago, ‘it's possible to be a missionary without ever leaving your zip code.’ Missional is being dispersed in the midst of humanity. Jesus’ mission started with leading of the Holy Spirit. He sends us into the world under the leading of the same Spirit. To bear witness, to build, to expand His Kingdom ...to redeem, restore, to feed, and to heal.

re-positioned

The gospel spreads best not through force but through fascination. Jesus doesn't insist on who he is or isn't. When people asked Jesus, ‘Are you the Messiah?’ he would answer by asking. ‘Tell me what you see, what you hear.’

I can’t remember where I read that...but it has been percolating for a while....

Jesus never answered a whole lot of questions in the gospels. Jesus was asked 183 direct questions in the New Testament.

Do you know how many he directly answered? 3.

What a frustrating insight to ‘we’ who have grown up assuming that the very job description of a ‘Christian’ is to give people answers and to resolve peoples' dilemmas. Apparently this is not Jesus' understanding of the function of a ‘follower’.

I think Jesus' parables were designed to be re-positioners. As he illustrates, and probes, and articulates...He corners us and makes us own our unconscious biases, breaks us out of our dualistic mindsets, challenges our image of who we are, who He is in God and who the world is, ..and all the while He presents new creative possibilities.

I think, as I sift through the life of Jesus...even Jesus doesn’t usually wait for or expect specific answers.

His reality is an awakening of redemptive imagination.
His heart is relationship.
He fascinates us with the beauty and reality of the Kingdom; a reality that is captured by infinite hope and new possibilities.

For me, the parables of Jesus are a microcosm of His passion interacting with the truth of who we are. They reveal Jesus’ priorities in ‘evangelizing’. I think a better way to describe these ‘interactions’ would be conversations of fascination.

Jesus’ conversations were filled with purpose. It seems He constantly asks questions.
Good questions.
Unnerving questions.
Re-aligning questions.
Transforming questions.

He leads us into a liminal reality; a space that has the potential for deep transformation.
He leaves us betwixt and between, where God and grace can get at us, and where we are not at all in control.

Have we shaped Jesus into simply a systematic theologian who walked around teaching dogmas...and in the process lost some of the essence of the journey of the Great Pilgrim?
Have we forgotten that He is the engaging transformer of the soul? That it is His divine imagination excites and produces the flame of passion?

Could it be that the conundrum of the church began when we started looking for easy answers...instead of asking hard questions?

How many of us are laying in the ditch beside the tracks because we have pursued others in order to save them...rather than submitting to the journey of brokenness that allows Him to change us and in the process redeem the world?

a moving thought...

'it doesn't happen all at once,' said the skin horse. 'you become. it takes a long time ... generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. but these things don't matter at all, because once you are real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.' ~ the velveteen rabbit, m. williams

when it's cold outside...

read the following excerpt in Brennan Manning's book, 'The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus', recently:
One hundred years ago in the Deep South, the phrase 'born again' was seldom used. Rather, the words used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus were, 'I was seized by the power of a great affection.'
have been spending time thinking about my own relationship with Jesus, and whether i would characterize it with similar words. i find it curious that such mystical and deeply emotive language has been lost for so many of us. the common language of being 'born again' isn't entirely wrong or offensive, but in some ways it implies the not-so-practical notion that one's conversion results in an immediate alteration of who we are. theologically, i think our conversion choice does immediately realign us with God's redemptive mercy. but salvation really is more than just being born; it's a lot like growing up.
and maybe that's why i like the idea of being 'seized' by a 'great (and transformative) affection'...because it implies His inherent work in me despite my best efforts to screw it up...in spite of my consistent languishing and immaturity.
all this brings john wesley's language to mind...how he found his heart 'strangely warmed' when encountering jesus' powerful grace. and today, when it's cold and rainy outside, this is what i seek. i long for the mystery of His love to centre me...to seize me...to warm the cold and inflexible parts of my heart.
i want to trust His mercy more than my own efforts.

proof in the pudding?

some friends of mine are moving into toronto to plant a community of faith in the next couple years. they are currently doing some training in detroit, and regularly keep their friends/family updated through a blog (www.luvisaverb.com). recently, tim asked for comments on what markers a true follower of jesus can be identified by...which is something i thought we could 'converse' about.

here is a non-exhaustive list of some things i thought of:

-marked by an ability to love (John 13:35), manifesting the proof of Christ's Spirit working in their lives (Gal. 5)
-marked by tenderness and perseverance when facing adversity (James 1)
-marked by the practice of hospitality...both opening one's home, and comfortably being in the homes of others
-marked by an overarching sense of integrity...i heard it said once that the most 'mature' followers are those with the smallest gap between their knowledge and their actions...which means you don't have to have been following very long to be 'mature'
-marked by an increasing desire to see Jesus glorified in places where he is not...a longing to participate in the coming of Christ's kingdom that we pray for (Mt. 6:10)