the complicated transition from coal to diamond

how many times do we read in scripture about apprentices being blessed by their predecessors as a rite of passage? a lot. the patriarchs, the kings, the prophets- they all speak words of blessing over their young padawans before being released of the work to which they were originally called. it's God's succession plan. even Jesus, baptised by john, prays blessing over his disciples. this moment is a significant passing of the baton, the torch, the scroll or the mantle- you pick the metaphor that works for you.

in each case the follower(s) encounter an intense challenge early on which frames in the faithfulness that will be required, lest anyone think that following will be a comfortable gig, tailor-made to fit the gift mix and passions of any successor. no servant steps into a preformed role ready to fill it. the servant is shaped by it over time and pressure the way diamonds are created out of lumps of coal.

i wonder if we’ve gotten some things a bit turned around a bit in our church culture with all of our talk and training about gift mixes and personal passions. i wonder if we may have even become fickle ministry consumers, trying things for awhile until the thrill, newness and novelty is gone, replaced by an ongoing bumping and grinding that never seems to abate- then wondering if, because we’re no longer passionate about every aspect of the gig, we’re still supposed to be engaged in it.

like involvement in work of God towards the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven is going to be easy simply because it’s right...

where is that written down? if anything, the opposite is often true: the things that are right seem to encounter some of the greatest friction in life simply because they are right. look it up: even Jesus' ministry years weren't glorious, trouble-free do-gooding... and he was God!

at my high school graduation commencements, bob chalmers, kamloops city alderman and the father of one of my graduating classmates, was asked to speak a few words about the future to the class of '82. i remember him telling us as we gathered there to celebrate this important life transition that he wasn't gonna lie to us: times were tough and many of us were gonna find ourselves out of work, with families to feed and no hope in the desperation. that there was no point in expecting things to be handed to us because the hands of provision would already be tied up by things like fiscal policy and an uneven and unfair distribution of power and wealth. although it was supposed to be a 'when the going gets tough...' kinda thing, I remember sitting there in the may heat wearing my cap and gown over my three-piece suit, thinking 'Geez- couldn't you lie to us a little?'

still, it was 1982 and we were in the middle of a recession- the man wasn't being cynical; he was just being real. in the years that followed, his prophetic words resounded and proved to be inspirational for me. we had been aptly warned and the world that we bold and beautiful young people were about to inherit would be instrumental in transforming us from our glib and naive arrogance into the meek and the wise the way a work boot must reshape the foot before being reshaped by it on the jobsite.

in his book Desire, writer and scout leader john eldredge posits that '...because we have not solved the riddle of our existence, we assume that something is wrong- not with life but with us.

when i delivered this talk in a sunday morning gathering, i showed what i had found to be an inspiring video clip. featured in it was a man named nick vujicic ('VOY-chik') who has overcome the complex range of human emotions resulting from being born with an overwhelming physical disability: for no medical reason, he has no arms or legs.

at that time, i had not dug deeper into his story in order to find the source of his seemingly limitless optimism. i shared simply that, in my view, he was doing the work of God because he was inviting everyday people to recognize and embrace their own intrinsic value by modelling it in his own life's journey. with a little further snooping around online, however, i discovered the place fromwhich his inner and outer strength originates. his is a spirit-filled life. to live by the spirit is to live in faith and service to maturity and to the realization of God’s dream for you within his larger context.

"The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for his people." (a.w. tozer)

where's daddy?

Q: why does the rhetoric of the church regarding the character, purposes and actions of God so often default to something that would shock us as abusive or otherwise neglectful if modelled by a parent?

A: because we (like isaiah, the biblical prophet) struggle for words, models and comparisons when it comes to understanding the things of God... especially God's silence.

***

in henson's 90's television series dinosaurs, there is an episode which delves into the troubling silence of God in a fun way.

the story of the film so far...

fran and earl sinclair discover that their child (tellingly named baby) is not their natural offspring due to a nest mixup back when he was hatched. bacause of baby's rather bombastic personality and some marked rejection of earl as 'NOT THE MAMA,' earl has never really bonded with baby. he is very open to a switch because, in his words, they're 'not exactly trading down.' fran will, of course, have no part of it without proof and so, after a battery of tests, the babies are declared to have been regretably switched at birth. baby goes to live with the other family and aubrey, the other child, comes to live with the sinclairs.

after a very short time, earl discovers that aubrey has no athletic ability, and so (at approximately 5:25 of the clip posted below) they choose to play a game that is less physical: peekaboo.

aubrey, however, panics and has an anxiety attack when earl invites him to cover his eyes and then asks 'where's daddy- where'd he go?'

AUBREY: Father! Father! Where have you gone? Oh! Don't abandon me! Ah! Ah! I'm having an asthma attack!

after taking a couple puffs from his inhaler, aubrey becomes a bit more lucid...

AUBREY: Oh what a cruel, cruel game- I felt so alone! Promise me you'll never play that again, Father!

he misses the point. earl is just playing a game, inviting interaction, but with his own hands over his eyes, little aubrey fails to see it. the immediate absence of the father from view preys upon his deepest fears of non-connection and abandonment. in his panic, he is unable to be reasoned with or even spoken to because he is busy putting into words these deep-seeded anxieties.

i'm not saying that all the pain and confusion we encounter is just God playing a game with us. i dare not say that. truth is, most days i don't know where a lot of that stuff comes from or why it is permitted here. that's been the subject of debate for greater minds than my own for millennia, with no satisfactory conclusion in sight. however, as i thought of how ready we often are to push the panic button when we lose sight of God, this clip came to mind. silence and darkness challenge our faith like nothing else, enflaming our fears of rejection, abandonment, and helplessness. it could be that we are simply engaging with the silence in the wrong ways.

i recently posted a question online:

What do you do when it feels like God is hiding?

a number of responses came back. a friend of mine provided a link to powerful piece of writing by latter-day beat poet, bradley hathaway. his poem silence says much which is consistent with my picture of who God the father is and how he interacts with us, even as we rant and blaspheme like the psalmist on his darkest days... our hands placed firmly over our own eyes.

What’s happening here?
I was once so alive and now I’m so full of dread and almost dead
Show me your wounded head that is lead to communion with the father
But where did he go?
His presence seems farther and farther away each day
but I’m trying so hard to steer his way
Yet still lonely and confused on this cold hard ground I lay

Speak to me wise mouth and say “it’s all good kid, it’s nothing that you did, and though it feels like I’m not here with you right now just be still and silent and listen for that sound..
Shhh..
Did you hear it?
Listen again.
Did you hear it?
That silent voice that just spoke nothing, that is me, I’m listening to your plea with open ears Counting all your tears flowing from your irritated eyes
Searching the skies looking for that hope that beyond there lies.

Oh you young worrisome sparrow, find rest
Lay your battered head upon my omnipresent breast and make it your nest
No strong cold wind could ever blow and carry you from this your home
Look around, see the life shooting up from the ground
Spring colors springing fourth and celebration of your trusting

It’s a constant process this is
Growing you into the man you are to become
But when you sense the setting of the sun know it is only rising and has just begun
Now go fourth, sing songs of faith, and lift up others in the midst of this race
And if you can’t keep the pace or lose sight of my face
Know that I’m always near so you need not fear
But don’t worry about all that right now
Just sit here and enjoy the peace I offer in my silence
When I am silent I am listening, and not abandoning.

cloudbusting

every act of human justification comes from a sense of entitlement. just think about it. we give ourselves permission to think or behave in certain ways because we feel we deserve something extra.

L'Oreal launched a powerful slogan a number of decades ago that still resonates for many of us today. it even received recognition in 2002 when it was inducted into the ad slogan hall of fame (although i must confess, until now i did not know there was such a thing...)

because you're worth it

this whole business of worth establishment can get rather muddled if we set up our portfolio in relation to the wrong people, places or accomplishments. this muddling can place around our heads a very thick cloud cover that hides some of the most obvious things from us- leaving us with significant blindspots in our field of vision and vocation.

but when does entitlement become a justice issue?

when it violates the rights of another.

peter gabriel once wrote a troubling song about a little child who, being abandoned by his parents, finds himself alone at home and staring out into the streets. the emotional detachment that is accomplished through his ongoing alienation and loneliness causes the child to play new imaginary games. from his place behind the front door, he plays the assassin, imagining every car going by as part of a motorcade. a chilling lyric says it all:

I don't really hate you. I don't care what you do.

We were made for each other, me and you.

I wanna be somebody- you were like that too.

If you don’t get given you learn to take... and I will take you.

we read in scripture, history and today's newspaper of emotionally detached people in positions of power who act out their sense of personal entitlement to the complete disregard of the human rights of those being exploited. human beings are just really good at putting themselves and their personal interests before those of others.

to take the enthnocentric edge off, what is needed is an accountability partnership- a bonding together in the pursuit of commonly agreed-upon values; two people who decide to listen to one another in case their own personal perspective gets a little too comfortable. the busting of entitlement clouds is accomplished best within voluntary relationships of trust and vulnerability.

back in the old testament, pretty much every king (e.g. ahab, david) had a prophet- one who would speak with the king for God.

To us a single act of injustice- cheating in business, exploitation of the poor- is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice in injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

(Rabbi Abraham Heschel)

a prophet is an entitlement cloudbuster.

we all need one of those- not just they who are kings.

learning disabilities and revelations

so i thought it would be a good idea to get involved in the community in a new way- i went out for regina summer stage's production of My Fair Lady.

nobody said anything about dancing.

it didn't come up at my audition (which felt an awful lot like an american idol sing-through. there were even three people at the table) and i disclosed on my application that i had no prior dance experience or involvement. i mean, my wife won't even dance with me at weddings. just sayin...

anyway, over the course of rehearsals- 80% of which have been choreo so far- something very interesting has come to light. i think i have a learning disability.

not even joking. we will work a sequence again and again, but as soon as we move to something else, the previous work just disappears.

it's like this: imagine that within a city full of buildings you are commissioned to erect structures in a new subdivision of lots that have been cleared as part of an inner-city revitalization project. so, working together with others, you

• lay the foundations.
• frame in the basic forms.
• rough in the walls, and even
• mark where the windows are to be cut to correspond with the framing...

then you all realize it's lunchtime, so you leave the site to eat. when you return to the construction site, every one of the buildings is just as you left it except yours.

yours is gone.

not torn down.

not vandalized.

no...

it's as if no one had ever worked on your lot. from then on, every time you get together to resume construction, the other buildings progress, but you are back building from the ground up... and falling further and further behind.

weird.

i've always known i was not a particularly kinaesthetic learner, but apparently i cannot internalize sequences of movements and then reassemble them in order. who knew? ever since realizing that i didn't have any real dance moves (which is an entirely different problem) i've just avoided dance environments, period.

whatever the case. i now personally understand the frustration of many of my students in the past who struggled with math. those who

• did all the homework
• came in for the extra help
• reviewed prior to exams, and even
• took and completed extra assignments...

and still went completely blank upon sitting down to write the exam itself.

on a side note, i'm sure glad i didn't play the sanctimony baloney card back in the day as a math teacher, loading these kids up with guilt and sarcasm when what they really needed was a little grace and perhaps an adaptation or two as simple as taking a sheet with the formulas written on it into the test.

whatever. here's my point:

there are things about us that we don't really know are true until we find ourselves in the situation where these are given expression. as long as we steer clear of unknown situations, there are things about us that also remain unknown. our strength or weakness in this area; our ability or disability; our giftedness or lack thereof. these things about us are as unknown as the contexts in which they would come to realization.

this is the problem with spiritual gifts inventories and the like. life is a process of self-discovery and these instruments, although very useful in affirming our positive suspicions about ourselves regarding our natural aptitudes for service and ministry, remain silent regarding the things that we don't actually know about ourselves through previous encounters with others and God. if a person has never been in environments where he or she has received opportunity and encouragement to, say, speak in tongues or heal another person or utter a prophetic word, then these spiritual gifts continue to remain undetected just below the surface of experience.

and who knows what revelations lie just below the surface of experience?