All posts by Rod White

Little lessons on friendship that make a big difference

Building community, , , ,

There are a lot of ways to see things — that can be confusing. But the solution to the problem of deciding among competing viewpoints is not to give up seeing! — the solution is to develop better eyes. So Paul says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Eph. 1:18) so we can see how great is our hope and how deep is God’s love in the middle of a confusing world — including confusing relationships.

So there is one thing about the topic of this blog. If you want to have a good friend and be one, you might need a better way of seeing friendship.

Jenn, 13, chiseling out holes in the electrical boxes for the log house.

In a church devoted to community in an age condemned to self-sufficiency we have to pray Paul’s prayer a lot: “I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened!”  The main reason we need to keep praying is because people can have terribly disappointing relationships in an environment that keeps promising wonderful ones! How could it be that someone could be in your cell and end up feeling like they have no friends? It happens. How could long-term members finally slide out the door thinking they are not dear to anyone? It happens — not all the time, but often enough for me to know about it. The same dislocations happen to marriages, so it is not surprising that in a covenant community we face similar break ups and cut offs that make us scratch our heads and sometimes weep.

We need to choose

I think one key ingredient that is important to the friendship we long for in the church is choosing. We need to choose, first, to be friends. Then our friendships have a better chance to survive. When we enter a relationship or are maintaining one, we intend to be a friend to someone. We don’t think it will just happen. We mean to do it. People don’t need to prove worthy, they need to prove unworthy (which is hard to prove to a chooser). They don’t need to be valuable, they are already valued. They don’t need to have attractive traits, they are welcome. If this sounds like we are expected to be like Jesus, that’s true. But you know you aren’t Jesus; you are choosing, everyday, to follow, develop and end up a lot more like Jesus than when you started. The main place we develop that character is in our loves, especially love of people. We intend to develop.

All this would seem obvious if we did not live in a society in which consumerism is the reigning ideology. People are cultured to think that a relationship should be worth it — worth my time, not worthless. A relationship should have value to me — produce further value, be according to my values. A relationship should be attractive — should be the experience I imagine, should have the features I desire. All that sounds like we are buying a car; it’s kind of crass. But we do it. Many of us have already subjected ourselves to OkCupid or, worse, Tinder. So we have already put our features on an ad and have subjected ourselves and others to the dismissive swipe of a thumb. Some of us have grown up in hook-up culture and have become either inept at or suspicious of commitment or even affection. There is a streak in most of us that thinks cars and people are mainly for having a good time and asking for more is either overbearing or unlikely to succeed.

Then Jesus calls us out of that wilderness and into what is increasingly a foreign land where people get taken very seriously, are graced, and are loved. It is a bit jarring.

So here are four thoughts about choosing to love. Maybe they will help. They are about building a love that begins with our willingness to make a covenant — a love that is looking for connection, not avoiding it like it is prison.

When you choose first to be a friend your love has certain characteristics:

Love fits.

People don’t have to fit in to your preconceived notion of what fits you or yours. You are not a “type” and they are not a “type.” You don’t care what their sign is, their Myers-Briggs letters, their enneagram number, their addiction designation or psychological diagnosis, their race or any other kind of label. You fit them in, they don’t have to fit. The act of fitting people in is the key to fitting together.

Love covers.

People don’t have to be behaving right when you meet them. You are not the last foolish thing you did and neither is anyone else. You know you don’t see people’s hearts right off. You don’t care if someone is the kind of friend you deserve, or the one you always wanted, or the one your parents thought you would have. Your choosing has those things “covered” in the same sense that “love covers a multitude of sins.” This doesn’t mean that we are just tolerant. It means we are gracious. We know people are sinners and we love them anyway. And they know we know, and know we choose to love them. The act of covering is the relational warmth we all long for.

Love forgives.

People don’t have to be afraid they will disappoint or offend because you don’t cut people off. They are not left to bear the consequences of not being perfect, you are on their side. You don’t pretend to be perfect and you don’t have that expectation of others, even though your mercy demands a response you might not always get. Love is more important than principle. You choose to not cut people off even when they are difficult, painful, ignorant, or not growing. You might be forced to thicken some boundaries or even shake the dust off your feet at times, but it will have to be a strong force. The act of forgiving is the mother’s milk of friendship, much more of intimacy.

Love believes.

People don’t have to wonder what you think and feel about them. You tell them. They don’t find out from someone else what you really think and they don’t find out after you are gone that all that time you really cared. Love speaks the truth. That’s not because we long for transparency or like hearing ourselves talk or feel better when we’ve unburdened ourselves (exclusively, at least), it is because we trust God and trust others. We believe in others – their capacity to learn and grow, to feel and love. We bring that grace to the relationship, not because we’re great, but because we choose to believe in hope and believe in opening up to transformation and believe in obeying the model of suffering love that blasts open tombs. The act of believing creates an environment where friendship can grow.

So look around the church at least, if not your marriage and family, and choose again. You may have stopped choosing and allowed the weeds of “unlove” to take root. Choose your freedom from what is ailing the world. Choose the freedom to be a friend first. Don’t wait until it seems fitting. Don’t wait to see the friend you deserve. Don’t expect to be unoffended. Don’t be afraid to rock the boat by being real. Then we’ll all have more friends because we will have you.

We have to keep helping the Syrians

The Mission, ,

Gwen and I did not have to pay as much tax as we expected! (Happy dance occurs). We decided to pour some of what we had saved for the taxes into South Broad’s sharing gap. And we poured another portion into the cups of our poor Syrian loved ones via MCC.

Thank God for the fragile cease fire that is allowing some more aid to get deeper into Syria itself. We have been trying to help since the crisis began in 2011. Remember the dress sale?

Since then, our sharing with MCC through our thrift stores and Common Fund has also helped alleviate suffering.

This conflict brought on “compassion fatigue” rather quickly for most people, I think. It appears the 1% would rather spend its money on buying the government than helping refugees. The rest of the 99% feel squeezed so much that they have a tough time sharing even when they actually have a lot to share. In case you are interested (and I am seriously NOT trying to guilt you into being interested — giving is about gladness, not guilt), here are some facts from World Vision:

Syria crisis: Fast facts

Why are Syrians fleeing their homes?

  • Violence: Since the Syrian civil war began, 320,000 people have been killed, including nearly 12,000 children. About 1.5 million people have been wounded or permanently disabled, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.4 The war has become more deadly since foreign powers joined the conflict.
  • Collapsed infrastructure: Within Syria, healthcare, education systems, and other infrastructure have been destroyed; the economy is shattered.
  • Children’s safety: Syrian children — the nation’s hope for a better future — have lost loved ones, suffered injuries, missed years of schooling, and witnessed unspeakable violence and brutality. Warring parties forcibly recruit children to serve as fighters, human shields, and in support roles, according to the U.S. State Department. Read a story on our blog about how 3 refugee sisters are coping.

What are the refugees’ greatest needs?


  • Syrians fleeing conflict need all the basics to sustain their lives: food, clothing, health assistance, shelter, and household and hygiene items.
  • They need reliable supplies of clean water, as well as sanitation facilities.
  • Children need a safe environment and a chance to play and go to school.
  • Adults need employment options in case of long-term displacement.
  • Prayer: Learn how you can pray for Syrian refugees. Join with others as we #PrayForRefugees.
  • Compassion: Read this article in Christianity Today by World Vision President, Rich Stearns about treating refugees with the compassion of Christ.

How does the war in Syria affect children?

Read about how the war is affecting Syria’s children in a special report from the World Vision magazine, “Syria Crisis and the Scars of War.”

  • Children are susceptible to malnutrition and diseases brought on by poor sanitation, including diarrheal diseases like cholera. Cold weather increases the risk of pneumonia and other respiratory infections.
  • Many refugee children have to work to support their families. Often they labor in dangerous or demeaning circumstances for little pay.
  • Children are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation in unfamiliar and overcrowded conditions. Without adequate income to support their families and fearful of their daughters being molested, parents — especially single mothers — may opt to arrange marriage for girls, some as young as 13.
  • Between 2 million and 3 million Syrian children are not attending school. The U.N. children’s agency says the war reversed 10 years of progress in education for Syrian children.

Thank God my faith is not all in my head.

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, , ,

Last Sunday we welcomed Jesus to raise us up with him. It seemed like a lot of people at the meeting really meant it when we shouted “He is risen indeed!” But I suspect others weren’t into it, or just watched me shouting. Their “mind” had the upper hand. They did not engage their body at all. Maybe they didn’t even come to the meeting. Why bother? They keep their “religion” in a private space in their head. Whatever love might be in that head, in concept, is left unexpressed. In fact, some other love is probably the object of their de facto worship, although they might not notice.

Welcome morning

That’s OK. Today is another day. And this week, as well, is loaded with opportunities to live in the spirit of Anne Sexton’s poem:

Welcome Morning by Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
dies young.

Hello there

for some people, it is all mentalIt may embarrass some people to hear the poet say: “in the spoon and the chair that cry ‘hello there, Anne’ each morning.”  It is so something, so immediate, so heartfelt! So many of us have our faith stuck in a mental construct; we’re arguing about principles in our head and fearing we don’t have it all right yet so we better not commit. Our silverware is certainly not talking to us! Others of us are trapped in a “worldview” that is a bit more human, but is still a philosophical construct by which we compare and contrast who we are with others and from which we draw a politically sanctioned identity, so we think sorting that out is about all the meaning we get — and all we do is sort. We would certainly think twice before we announced to the public that we were overcome with joy this morning at breakfast! It just wouldn’t fit the self-concept.

Last week, during the holy week, the commemoration of Jesus’ last week, when history is offered a restart, we were invited to put our mental dialogue in its place and find joy in our own pea-green house, in our own bodies, walking alongside Jesus, who is God ennobling and redeeming our true selves as the author of creation and its restorer. Like him, for the joy set before us, we endure the cross.

Move with my loves

If you have a mental faith, Holy Week probably seemed like a lot of time spent on redundant material. If you are training your body to move with your loves, you may have awakened every day, like Anne Sexton, and said,

“So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.”

On each day of the holy week we made a special, communal, concerted effort to “paint a thank-you on” our palms, and so get our bodies moving in the direction of our salvation. We moved through darkness into light, not just in our thoughts or beliefs, but in our hearts and time with those we love in the creation we feel. And so we trained our hearts for joy and opened our days to grace. We were saved, not in theory, but in fact.

There were words and thinking, of course, but, as I am prone to saying, “It does not really matter what happens, it matters that I did it.” What I do ends up being the liturgy of my loves. Thus Sexton’s poem is so profound because she realizes that even her breakfast is charged with God’s presence and should she fall on her knees by her table it would be an appropriate action that would unleash the joy stored up in the meal. How much more profound was the “breakfast” of Holy Week, as we knelt before our common table of grace and looked forward to the joy of Easter morning: these birds, these seeds, this realization that I am welcomed into eternal joy, and this “God, this laughter of the morning!”

God help us, we do not coerce anyone to do what we plan as Circle of Hope, so I am not trying to get you to come to meetings! We would not risk driving you into another bout with all the shoulds the mental overlords have caused you to resist as you rebel against their science and social construction. But, again this week, we are offering a lot of ways to express your loves with people who love you. We have a lot of ways to cooperate with the reorientation of our desire towards true joy. Just being with your cell or making it to the Sunday meeting might get the ball rolling or keep it rolling —  if you don’t just think about it, of course.

[The original post appeared at Circle of Hope.net]

Why we should finish the fast — or start it today

A life in the Spirit, , , ,

Lent does drag on, doesn’t it?

As the season came to the last few weeks people started complaining. Some felt guilty because they never did anything — at least not like the people who wouldn’t stop talking about what they were doing! The Daily Prayer entries started to seem redundant and even boring. As the Covenant List people were chatting about, acedia became noticeable.

So why keep going?

I know I am not talking to everyone, since you did not start to begin with. That’s OK. You can keep reading and there are plenty of other things than Lent to help you keep moving in faith. Keep going how you are going.

On the other hand I know I am not talking to some other people because you are having the time of your life! So I don’t mean to imply that everyone is dragging around and feeling miserable. If you are experiencing the exquisite pleasure of honing your relationship with God and experiencing revelations and revolutions, thank God! Keep going how you are going.

Discipline trains our loves

But I know some of us need convincing. We are not all experienced at spiritual discipline – or maybe any discipline for that matter. We might think Lent (particularly fasting) is not only hard, it is unnecessary – and maybe you even feel it is insulting to imply, “You are not OK. You need to grow. You should do something.” So about this time of year the church can seem kind of oppressive and like all the “good kids” are doing the right thing together and no one is supposed to be resisting. You might even feel that resisting such groupiness makes you better than all the weak-willed people who just do what they are supposed to do. If any of this resonates, you are experiencing Lent in the way you do, too. Keep going.

I don’t mean you should keep resisting or entertain and elevate all the natural defense mechanisms you have just because the whole thing is getting rather personal. I mean you should note what the demand you feel is arousing and follow that arousal right into the Lord’s presence and see what is happening in you. God does not need a particular discipline to relate to you, but the particular discipline of the Lenten fast is even vicariously useful.

Fasting is a means to pleasure, you know, not just a morbid elevation of suffering, as if you were not supposed to have any pleasure. The purposeful abstention from a particular pleasure, like eating a certain food, allows it to regain its place as a prolepsis, a gift from God in the present that has an even greater reality in eternity. Through fasting, a pleasure can regain its value and meaning as a gift and a promise.

Discipline reduces our distractions

We are inordinately connected to a lot of things that crowd out our relationship with God. The willful act of uncrowding when we fast gives spiritual space for our true selves to flourish. It is healthy to rest from our pleasures, like we rest from everything else. Most of the time the weariness of our yearning or our resistance to yearning can lead us to become open to God’s presence. There is an old poem by George Herbert (1593-1633) called The Pulley that tries to get at it, if you’d like to give it a read. Our sense of emptiness and our frustration over not being at rest is like the pulley God uses to do his work of salvation.

The Lifeline by Winslow Homer, 1884

Fasting from what normally occupies us or addicts us, helps us rebel against the errors of the modern era that have overtaken most of us in one way or another. Addicts are actually unwitting prophets since they find a substance or activity that provides a central, organizing reality in a culture that has the meaning sucked out of it and is hollow. Society gives us arbitrariness, boredom and loneliness but your vidiocy, for example, provides a false, but stimulating antidote. Addiction highlights the damnation; fasting opens us up to salvation.

Discipline opens us up to true pleasure

Fasting prepares us to savor the pleasure we have purposefully deprived ourselves of during Lent. For instance, I usually don’t eat cookies, my favorite food, during Lent. A lack of cookies has a surprising way of opening me up to the pleasures of God’s guidance. So I especially enjoy the first taste of cookie on Easter morning. I could go home and eat an entire batch to get back on the addiction wagon. Or I could learn, again, that I can eat a cookie with meaning, savoring the pleasure of a bite instead of tanking up with a batch, seeing even a cookie as a gift from the one who made it – who baked it in my own oven and Who created it into the planet from the beginning, as a sign of my ultimate end in God.

In this day when everything is degraded with an outright joke or ironic lilt, fasting is radical seriousness about life. Keep going. Even if you are in a bad mood and think drinking that beer you vowed not to drink will make you feel better, that is a great struggle. If you drink the beer, you will see what kind of “better” you feel, if you keep listening. If you don’t drink the beer, you will see what it all means that way, too. God is good.

For those of you who have gotten this far in reading and have never heard of Lent, fasting or Circle of Hope: welcome to our party! We are having a rich life together with Jesus. He is leading us through death into life, and there are many roads to His good end. Right now we are realizing that our sufferings are not for nothing. As a matter of fact, recognizing them in the safety of our Savior’s presence brings them meaning and restores our sense that the future is full of promise. In fasting, for instance, we embrace the sufferings that emerge when we leave open space for God to fill our emptiness. You have gotten this far! I hope you will keep going.

A confusing world: War is a good practice topic for finding a third way

Doing Theology, , , , , ,

We’ve got to do better than Disney thinking in a disintegrating world. I know, I’ve been to Disney World.

Disney World is such a theological place! It recently set my head spinning again when I visited. Simba, Aladdin, Pooh, Peter Pan, etc. were all trying to teach me lessons — and everywhere, it was “Have a magical day!” which is like a liturgical response to everything for people from the Magic Kingdom. With Disney, the basic message is relentlessly, “Find the dream in you and follow it” and there is always a choir to tunefully follow up the message, like the famous song from Cinderella (below) that sums it up:

https://youtu.be/1i8XVQ2pswg

After the song, we all go ride the rides that give a little jolt of experience that proves the magic is real. A little magic, a large group of fellow-worshipers, a promise of more (if you buy a ticket) sounds like religion to a lot of people. It is, in a way. But it is religion that resembles what N.T. Wright calls present-day “gnosticism” more than it resembles the way of Jesus, as he warns:

Gnostic-like thinking says, “Whatever you need is in you, you just need to find it and unleash it.”

  • Some people go for that with gusto: “I believe I can fly!”
  • Many more wither under the responsibility of self-creation in an uncaring world.

We need the third way that is following Jesus, risen among us.

The world is confusing right now.

There is a lot to say about what is happening to the world and how people are making sense of it, and I hope we will say a lot, because Jesus is the ultimate meaning maker. It is an opportune time to see what is going on right now, since it is an election year and the beliefs of the masses get up to the surface and we get a chance to see them again — and  we get a chance to make sense of them (if the pundits don’t steer us completely). How do we keep discerning the way when there is so much shouting from either pole? A lot of people I’m talking to are quite confused, how about you?

I think we can keep our heads on and our love intact if we stay somewhere in the middle and keep moving toward Jesus. There is a third way. Jesus is not a stance or a platform, but he is the way and a destination. I often find myself trying to steer a middle course among the people of the world, and, unsurprisingly, between the poles I often see in the church. It is something like what Paul teaches when he says I must not be, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14).

  • On the one extreme we have people who preach that “your dreams are a wish your heart makes,” just keep believing — and for many a traumatized person in Philadelphia, to do that would be a brave step out of the disaster they have experienced their whole life.
  • And then on the opposite extreme, we have people who can’t say the word “Disney” without an ironic inflection, who think a material “reality” is all there is so make the most of this mess and spend your efforts getting yours and loving your friends — for many people moving in to Philadelphia, to say such a thing might be an honest step away from the delusions in which they can no longer believe.

It is surprising how often the church seems unconscious that they have another way, a third way, that is not for or against, with or without the present age.

Is there a way to relate to people in the middle of the turmoil?

Here we are in the middle of the polarization: Spirit-indwelled people, living in a tangible community, persistently telling the story of our resurrection with Jesus and our future as world-redeemers by his side. We have our work cut out for us if we want to have any conversation at all.

Let me try to demonstrate how to think in a way that isn’t at one of the poles or merely disagreeing with them, a third way Take one subject that makes Christians at odds with most structures: WAR.

  • The one side might just let people decide whether being a pacifist is “right for them.”
  • The other side might use all the power at hand to keep what is theirs, as long as they are safe and don’t have to do anything too dangerous.

What does a Jesus-follower do? I don’t think Christian peacemaking is the same thing as political pacifism, but since they always get lumped together, let’s just use the word. What is the third way in thinking about war? – and I mean what is thinking as a Spirit-indwelled person, not just a spirit trying to escape a body or a spiritless body trying to prolong life as long as possible?

To begin with: pacifist is not passive. Not being pacifist is being pacified.

That sums it up. Proactive peacemaking is a lifestyle, not a leisure-time activity. Loving others, including enemies, is a character trait, not an application of theory. I say (and I think Jesus does too) that if you are not “pacifist” you are pacified. You may think you have love in your heart and that’s enough, or you might think you are not required to address the subject of loving people at all, but those are just more ways to be under the sway of the powers Jesus came to upend. Being disembodied is not an option.

jesus in the middle is the third way

If you want life coursing through your body as you proactively make peace on earth with Jesus,  I think there are at least three important reasons to think about forging a third way that is moving toward Jesus rather than getting stuck bouncing between the prevailing poles of arguments looking to make you an adherent.

  1. There is only so much time.

We should make the most of our time. So many of us like the election cycle because it is a big overdose of arguing that lets us off the hook from deciding. As long as we can find a reason not to choose, we feel a strange lack of responsibility that we like. I was just with five-year-olds for a few days. They were adept at pretending they never did anything they feared might be construed as wrong. Ever. No lie was too big to get me to swallow in that cause. We’re all like that a little, I think. If we can avoid it, we will. But our minutes matter. The clock is ticking and the life Jesus offers is being wasted if we are not telling the truth we know.

Donald Trump said: “In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, we have people chopping the heads off many other people. … I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” There is no time to wish that away and no time to lose by merely avoiding. We need to choose Jesus.

2. Faith is public.

The idea of a public faith is heresy to most Eurocentric people. They think faith is private. We are taught in any number of ways to be autonomous beings responsible for ourselves. And we believe the law protects our private beliefs (until those beliefs go against the powers that write the laws, of course). So we are furious at poor people for not getting richer and furious at rich people for taking all the poor people’s money — people should fulfill their potential and no one should take away the possibility of that. Even when it doesn’t happen, the prevailing authorities can’t think of anything else to do but blame individuals for not being good enough, since they are sure the world is an economy run by an invisible hand and people get to do whatever is  in their heart.

Nothing in the life of Jesus or anyone else in the Bible, for sure, would imply that faith is anything but a life one lives in public, in view, unashamed, assuming one’s life matters as part of the whole. “Privacy” is the luxury of being complicit with some power that protects one’s capacity to go unnoticed. Meanwhile, Jesus is enduring a public execution. He tells his executioner that he will not use his power to participate in a war that might save him from the acts of evil he came to share and overcome. That is about as public example of pacifism as possible. There is another way.

 

3. Meditation without action is self absorption.

Orthodox Christians tried to root out gnosticism in the 200’s and 300’s, but the spirit of it was well-preserved in the meditation teaching of my cherished monks, I have to admit. By the 20th century, they realized that Buddhism, Sufism and all sorts of other religious people long to leave the body for complete union with God. These days, mindfulness and irreligious yoga instructors teach the out-of-the-body mindfulness without any spirit at all.

I appreciate the reality and the feelings of contemplative prayer. But I am mindful to meet Jesus in prayer, not just my own capacity for contemplation. Just because I am doing spiritual things doesn’t mean I am connecting to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What saves me from the self-absorption so popular these days is remembering Jesus in history and meeting the risen Lord in my own history: spirit to Spirit, heart to heart, mind to mind, strength to strength. From the peace I experience in prayer, I make peace.

There are ways between the poles:

  • Keeping my eyes on my minutes rather than wasting hours on political redundancies and absurdities, as if they were as breathlessly important as the CNN would like us to believe.
  • Keeping my faith public rather than being driven into privacy or giving up on making a difference.
  • Keeping my spirituality looking to Jesus rather than just “spirituality” or just my own physical sensations.

Being actively on the way, connected to Jesus and his people, allows me to be a pacifist, to choose to love, to even risk the danger of brazenly escaping the clutches of the powers in their own backyard. They don’t have me pacified because I left reality for my dream and they don’t have me pacified because I gave up my need to be a personal alternative and to create an alternative society, the church. Jesus has me, right in the middle, making a peaceful way through, a third way.

Is Circle of Hope “soft on sin?”

Doing Theology, , , , , ,

I was having a very nice stuffed chicken breast out in the burbs with two of my oldest friends on Saturday night and the subject turned to sin. Specifically, it turned to the gossip my friend had heard that Circle of Hope is “soft on sin.” I think I said, “Are you serious? That is still going around? You heard that?”

One time, a long time ago I think, one of the pastors at one of the Presby plants (purportedly) warned his people that Circle of Hope was soft on sin. People have been warning others about us ever since. The word came full circle to me over a nice dinner and my dear friend knew the source.

So our church has two reputations going around. If you look us up on Google, we look like we are hard on sin, since a loosely-connected slanderer unjustly tried to take us down in the City Paper one time (before it folded under its own weight of spurious reporting) for being hard on certain sins which are popular targets for legalistic Christians. Wasn’t true. But if you run into us in the Christian gossip mill, we apparently look like we are soft on sin, since they know of many instances when we have embraced people before they believed and they know we include people before they are moral. We work things out, not cut things off; we travel with people along their way, and don’t tell them they can join us when they get on our correct path. They are right about what we do, but they are wrong about what it means.

So I want to say a few things about our reputation, particularly about being “soft on sin.”

1) For one huge thing, what does “soft on sin” even mean?

What Christian ever had a call from God to be “hard” on sin?  And what person is not already hard on themselves because of their sin, even before some Christian tells them they are bad? Donald Trump acts like he is hard on sin, even as he is sinning! — but he apparently has a personality disorder.

If there is a sin the Bible calls us to be “hard” on it is probably the sin of presuming we can judge the righteousness of others! Paul says he does not even judge himself; and Jesus says to leave judgment to God. I think we are hard on the sin of being hard on sinners, such as ourselves. So, in the minds of some, that might make us “soft.“

did sin cause the division?2) Do Christians really have to compare one another?

Christians seem to treat each other like rival fast food franchises, don’t they? — “our righteousness is better quality, unlike those other people!” I wish it were not so. Comparisons are odious. It is not always easy, but I try to stay positive about the Christians who are not in my “camp.” There is often a particular genius I can admire. Presbyterians are stuck in their cave-in to modernism, but they are often great Bible teachers. The Pope fronts some of the greatest heresies ever normalized, but Catholics have a great system to teach contemplative prayer. Even though Ted Cruz grew up in one of the scariest fringe groups ever, I hear he is a pretty great husband. Much of the time the Brethren in Christ don’t know what to do with us, but our denomination’s historical synthesis is still theologically and practically brilliant.

But do any of the growing number of unbelievers in the United States care about the boundaries between the many variations of Christians? The ones I’ve met who know about them largely cite the differences as a good reason not to get involved with us.

3) Actually, we are very adept at dealing with sin.

One of our proverbs warns us: “Everyone is recovering from the sin addiction; expect conflict.” We are not afraid we will be tainted by sin because someone is sinning; we accept that everyone is bringing their version of sinfulness with them. There will be problems. Like Jesus in the wilderness, we are all in our process, being tempted and coming to our fullness through the struggle. We are conflicted inside, and the whole church has a tendency to fight because sin is at work in us.

Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.But as the scripture goes on to say, the Spirit of God is also at work in us because Jesus has saved us. If some folks want to protect themselves from the “liberals” over at Circle of Hope, it will be a delusional task, since they are already infected with sin and their judgment demonstrates the fact. Likewise, if Circle of Hope people (like me) get super angry and self-righteous over the supposed attacks from people they have not met and sources they have not verified, then they will, likewise, be demonstrating how broken they really are. If any of us falls to following a new law or relying on our manuals of proper behavior, we will miss the freedom of forgiveness by which Paul goes on to say: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2). Some people thought Paul was “soft on sin” because he taught the truth of the gospel like that. Not so.

I hope I can get the same kind of criticism as Paul, now and then. It makes me feel like we are doing something worth noticing; so it is affirming in a back-handed way. This weekend, it was just rumors that I had heard before. I can hardly call a criticism based on hearsay an actual criticism, can I? It’s like an insult-once-removed. When I meet up with the slanderer in the age to come, we can work it all out with joy. Until then, I hope to be as “soft on sin” as the One who shared mine, died to undo it, and raised me to walk around consciously wounded by it but also transcendent.

Pay attention! It’s Lent.

A life in the Spirit, , ,

Last week our pastors focused on the definitive story of Lent: Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. We are in the thick of our own wilderness right now. We are emulating the Lord’s forty days of development before he launched into redeveloping creation. Mark succinctly recounts what happened:

The Spirit sent him out into the wilderness,  and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Has been in desert - Vasily Polenov
Vasily Polenov, 1909

The pastors are trying to get us to make the journey with Jesus. I am taking their lead.

Along the way, I have been struck, again, that Jesus deliberately attends to the process of his suffering and development in the wilderness and in the process he is attended to. A big theme is attention. The Spirit drives the Lord into the wilderness and he submits to the necessity. He turns his attention to that empty space. Sure enough, the devil presents the deepest temptations that might deter him. He learns to defeat them, is ministered to by angels and returns to claim his place in the world and participate in the miracle of redemption. We need to pay attention to the Lord paying attention. We need Lent every year so we can begin to scratch the surface of the deep movement he endures that is also moving in us — and attend to it.

One of the big temptations Lent presents is whether we are going to attend to it at all. It is better if we decide to move with the Spirit, if we give our attention and so learn to be generally attentive to God. But just being around Lent has a tendency to develop us anyway.

For instance, last week a friend called me with some significant feelings about what was going on in the church this season. I finally said, “You are experiencing Lent. The feelings and thoughts you have are exactly what people attending to Lent experience. Great!” He wasn’t too sure I should be celebrating his difficult feelings. But he eventually realized I had discerned the situation fairly well. He felt better.

Likewise, the other night I had a dream that woke me up as I screamed at some dark presence that frightened me. I realized that whether I attended to my inner life during the day or not, when I was less-defended in the night my dreams might try to wake me up to attend to the movement inside me. Whether I wanted to be aware or not, something was happening.

The biggest temptation of Lent might be to not pay attention to the temptation, or to avoid the circumstances in which we might have to deal with something — to pretend we are not moved by the Spirit, not looking toward a new expression of our gifts and mission, or not attended to by God, sought and loved.

The thought of deliberately turning our attention to something deep or hard just seems exhausting to many of us, and for good reason. We are naturally limited, and if we don’t rely on God and others to have a life, we will quickly be overwhelmed.

This reality surfaced again last week when I contacted the Leadership Team (30 great people, thank God!) to find out what communications they gave their attention. I sent a survey out after the iced-out Imaginarium and over half of them filled it out that night! That is some good attending! Others took a couple of days to get to the email and then the survey. But all in all I felt attended to and found them to be attentive.

I learned a lot from the process: risking a test to see who would respond, daring to find out things I might not want to know, imposing on people who have to make an effort to connect, etc. The process was unwittingly Lentish and good. A few things:

  1. We have a good, growing Leadership Team. Thank God! We need them to keep growing. They have a lot to which to attend and they need to be good at it.
  2. Attending is hard. If you write an email to your team member, you need them to answer it or there is no team. Some of the people I polled can’t read email at work. They might read it first on their phone and realize they’ll need to sit down at a computer later. But they come home to the needs of their house and maybe a baby or two. Plus they are tired. It is hard to keep up.
  3. If someone does not attend, the system brings up the rest of its inadequacies to make sure they are noticed. It is a bit like my dream. What is unattended is going to find a way to make itself known. You might think other people are making up for your lack of attention, and that might be true at times. But more likely, you are more important than you admit and your inattention is creating trouble. That trouble will make itself known.

You undoubtedly relate to all this. Attending to people we love is hard for all of us. That is astonishing, but it is true. We are so limited, we might feel put upon by the need to love God or the ones who love us! — much more those we don’t know yet, or our enemies! A simple email can make us feel like we are in the wilderness with wild beasts!

I am not sure Jesus was completely conscious of what he would face in the wilderness when the Spirit drove him into the first Lent. Like we need, he needed to have courage to attend to whatever was coming. His attention to his Father and his true self is a great example for us. Not attending like Him will deform us. Our avoidance won’t save us from having to face what we fear, as we hope it might; our fear will find a way to dominate it unless attending to Love casts it out.

One way or the other, we’ll meet up with our temptations. We’ll be inexplicably mad at those dearest to us. Or our dreams will be disturbed. Or we will be the problem in the functioning of our team. Or something. I think we would like to never be led into temptation, like the Lords’ prayer has us pray. But chances are we can’t avoid it and we will need to learn how to be delivered from evil, as in the very next breath of the same prayer. We are in the middle of being delivered right now. Lent is helping us to see what it is in us, as individuals and the church, that needs God’s help and teaching us how to participate in our deliverance – for some of us, whether we want to see or learn or not! Some of us are leaning into it with Jesus. Some of us are learning to sort out what we attend to like the demands are wild beasts meeting us in the desert! Either way, we are driven by the Spirit to get ready for what is next. I think giving what attention we can muster is our crucial part.

Four blue words about making the most of your money

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Doing Theology, Life as the church, The Mission, , , , , , , ,

The death of Antonin Scalia has people talking about his legacy. Most of the comments start with “love him or hate him, he made an impact.” An oAntonin Sclaiap-ed in the New York Times says: Justice Scalia’s most important legacy will be his “originalism” and “textualism” theory. But it also says his attitude of calling opponents “idiotic” or worse may also be as memorable. He often made a point that recycled a 19th century slogan about Native Americans:  “The only good Constitution is a dead Constitution” — that may also be the kind of thing history recalls.

Scalia and ReaganWhen Ronald Reagan nominated Scalia in 1986 I was not thinking too clearly about my legacy. I was creating one, but I was a bit in denial about being actually responsible for it. I was the father of toddlers and in the throes of planting a church, so I had a lot to influence. But I consciously left the future in God’s hands and lived as radically as I could imagine. I am sure I also thought my opponents were idiotic at times. As a result, a lot of good happened and no small amount of bad. I think I could have used some more consciousness about what I was trying to build that others might live in.

I always say things like “We’re not building the pyramids here,” meaning that we know we are being shaped by God all the time; what we do is temporal and subject to development, like we as people are subject. But that can be taken too far, since we are made to influence one another and what we do also has eternal value, or at least long-lasting ill-affect. So I am glad we have a seminar coming up this weekend that will teach us about considering our legacy a little bit. It is called The Color of Money: Blue. Blue is the color of water, the season of the Way of Jesus devoted to people who are exploring the depths of being a Jesus follower. What do mature Christians do with their money? What legacy will they leave?

Last year the Capacity Core Team did some good thinking about money. Some of it will be worked in to the upcoming seminar. They came up with four words that I think we all have to ponder when we are making decisions about what to do with our money and what our money might do for others.

Four words to ponder when making money decisions

Character. How we use our money is a sure indicator of whether we are acting out of our true self in Christ, or not. Our goal is to become a sharer, like God. Most of the time, if we have a twenty in our hand, a choice is being made. That might be why our creditors love paperless, automated systems, so we never see that money at all and can’t figure out what is going on! We like not knowing, too, since it is hard to be responsible and the machine makes us think everything is taken care of.

Community. Having a common fund with the other believers is such tangible faithing that it is irreplaceable. It might shape us more than anything else; sharing like that quickens latent discipleship. Not sharing like that is also shaping everyone staying on the outside, right now. Being a sharer implies that we have a personal connection with someone. Bill Gates is a sharer too, but mostly with spreadsheets, with masses. We are sharers with each other, first. Our common fund is the basic tool of our love since it is built with love. Building one makes us something even as we are making it.

Resistance. We’re taught a lot about money in this society/economy that oppresses us. Basic money management rules never change: Spending less than you earn will always be beneficial. Investing your money will always be better than doing nothing with it. And planning for the future will always be better than blowing your paycheck as soon as you get it. But in the U.S. those management ideas are usually applied to becoming wealthy not pursuing God. Some of us resist the pursuit of wealth by refusing to seriously deal with finances. Some of us resist resisting and try to Christianize the pursuit of wealth, or at least avoid talking about our preoccupation with it. Alternatively, we want to have a godly resistance, not just resistance of some sort. We need to address the use of money (which is a subject often laden with taboo or fully enslaved to some godless philosophy) with love and in the presence of God.

Investment. This is a very “blue” word, since it implies that you have something to invest: a character that makes godly choices, a community that is worth your heart, a conviction that frees you from slavery to the world’s ways and an imagination about what might be growing. Investing money is about creating wealth for most people — that is the goal of capitalism, right? But investment should be about one’s spiritual legacy: What we are given to give to the world? What is our best shot at moving transformation along? Investment is about building something that is bigger than just our own wealth. Our church is our most immediate “something” that we build together. But that tool we have builds something bigger than itself, too. We can see what it builds when we explore what our investment in MCC does, or when we can dare to spend our savings to plant another congregation, or in how we invest in the lives of our leaders and staff and manage to maintain our properties.

Sharing money is where we answer two of the most important questions in life: “Where do I belong?” and “Am I important?” Sharing what we have expresses our unity within the body and in our common purpose. What we have matters because we each matter. We need each other. Without each other we wither.

Antonin Scalia spent his whole life trying to get the cap back on the societal bottle that blew its top in the 1970’s.  Most Christians have been doing the same thing, in vain, right alongside him — no doubt some with great motives. We, as Circle of Hope, have been trying to do something else. Like our song says, we like that “new wine.” It is not new like it is an innovation. It is new because the world is, like Scalia said, a bit “idiotic” and life with God seems new to us. Each generation needs its own taste of the new life Jesus is bringing to an ever-dying world. How we handle our money is a great test of the faith we bring to living in that world. How we share is one of the most tangible ways we get to demonstrate that something new in the world is not only possible, it is being built.

Introduction to Lent.

A life in the Spirit,

This year’s Lent theme from Circle of Hope’s pastors:

Here is the first of four posts I collected to help people who are less-experienced with the discipline season called “Lent.” It begins tomorrow with “Ash Wednesday.”

Slow, reflective, imaginative: the spiritual discipline of Lent

These are a few basic thoughts distilled from our Ash Wednesday ritual. Lent begins on February 10 this year.

Slow down

We need silence to find the spiritual place where Jesus is with us in our suffering and we are with Jesus in his suffering. Lent is the season of silence and solitude — and suffering. Some people will even “give something up” to cause some small suffering to make some space where they can experience something more than their usual anesthesia, avoidance or denial. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of our yearly, disciplined journey of repentance and renewal, the beginning of the concentrated season of self-denial and self-giving that feels like suffering but points us toward joy.  Wednesday we enter the great forty-day fast with millions of other Jesus followers – those living and those who have gone before. God bless you as you take your steps along the way of Jesus this year!

The interior journey too
The interior journey too

Let’s go as slowly as possible. We need to be quiet, thoughtful, and restful. We must not be impatient. We must not worry if we don’t feel or understand things right away — there are no expectations of Lent except that we seek after Jesus, explore the meaning of his death, and die with him. Paul shares our goal: I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.  Lent in not the imposition of some demanding God, but it might feel like it, since in solitude God’s presence will be compelling. One of Job’s friends has it right when he says: God is wooing us from the jaws of distress into a spacious place free from restriction. Let’s see how much we can cooperate.

Reflect

Examine yourself; admit the truth about yourself to God; sense the conviction of God’s Spirit pointing out what is self-destructive or what amounts to an alliance with evil. Lent begins with an honest self-assessment. We pause to consider whether we have strayed from home, whether we have gone our own way, whether we are squandering our inheritance, whether we are feeding pigs in some way. The discipline of Lent dares us to be aware of our prodigal sides. We are looking for an awakening like the child in the Lord’s parable: “I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.”

We consider whether our lives sadden the One who gave them. When Paul teaches us about sin he says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Do not break God’s heart. Do not break up with God, who loves you. Do not turn your back on your lover. Do not live in fear as if you are not loved. Do not hold on to condemnation when you are freed from it. Do not violate the Spirit of love. Ash Wednesday is all about seeing God’s grief and sharing it. Lent is a season for turning back to love and rebuilding it.

Imagine

We have become so unrelated in the world today that the early church rituals like those associated with Lent: ashes on our foreheads, fasting, communal spiritual disciplines all seem quaint to many of us. People of the past seem so tied up with God and one another! They were not anonymous or autonomous. They did not keep their distance. They did not know how to be absently virtual.

mourning, transforming black pines
mourning, transforming black pines

For instance, it is said that very early in the history of the church, it had become a regular practice to have people who had been caught up in serious sin to come to the community of the church seeking a way to re-enter the fellowship in good conscience for the main celebration of the year: Resurrection Sunday (Easter). They would be sprinkled with ashes and then sent off in “exile” from the church, “into the wilderness” with God – sent off with the expectation that they would be restored. Their forty-day period of repentance was called their “quarantine,” from the Latin for forty. It soon became common for friends to come with the penitents to receive ashes in solidarity with them and to express the truth that we are all sinners. The leadership of the church finally saw the wisdom in what was going on and encouraged everyone to repent and fast in preparation for the resurrection. By 1050 a pope had made it a requirement.

It makes sense to use this tradition as one with all the other Christians throughout history who have gotten the same point: we need a time to be sick with sin and to get well, to let ourselves experience the grief of being separated, the desperation of our sorrow, the difficulty of having been far away in sin. We need to hope to be restored by Easter. We need to get into the truest story there is: we are the child of the grieving father; we were dying; we need to come back to life. The essence of the discipline of Ash Wednesday is to acknowledge that sin, brokenness and oppression. The call is: Remember from dust you are and to dust you will return.

We are so disconnected from nature and the seasons of the year nowadays! Even in a hard winter we expect to get our unseasonal fruits and vegetables, to travel without restriction, to go about our business as if nothing is happening, surrounded by our artificial environments. The people of the past seem so primitive, forced to live according to the changes around them.

Moving the couch toward the Lent bonfire
Moving the couch toward the bonfire

For instance, in the villages of medieval Europe it was common to mark the beginning of Lent with a huge bonfire in the village square. The fuel for the fire was all the detritus left over in everyone’s house after people were cooped up all winter. In any number of ways people would use the fire to symbolize that winter was soon to be over, the fire was a statement of passion in direct confrontation to the numbness of the cold. It was time to look forward to spring.

Simple, physical symbols like that help us on our spiritual journey through time. Lent is a yearly season for spring cleaning. Ash Wednesday is the day to light the bonfire to burn what needs to be cleaned out. May your garbage be turned to ash. May we rise from our ashes. May we be transformed in a furnace of God’s Spirit burning in us and refining us. May sunrise come to your heart and spring touch your bitterness.

Let something burn. Let it go. Be freed. Be received. Use Lent for spiritual housecleaning. Turn around and remember who you are. Let yourself go. Let something grow. Let the consuming fire of God’s Spirit transform you. Have a vision of what can be.

Go slow. Begin with reflection – the Holy Spirit will help you. Proceed with imagination —  Jesus has made us each a new person.

Other Posts about Lent:
Lent Did It’s Job

At times, I felt a little guilty, because my self-imposed suffering was bearing delectable fruit: some of it tasted new and some of it tasted of well-loved flavors I had been missing. Meanwhile, some people were blowing off the discipline…for what? At times I felt like I was having a feast while strangely invisible to starving people.

Survival vs. Lent

All this makes me wonder if Lent will be ignored this year because we’re too busy surviving the way we do when we are not living.

Lent, the Teen Whisperer, and Skins

It seemed like people were into it. But given the typical attention-span of most of us, it will probably take an uninitiated person about five years to understand what is going on during the season of Lent. I hope they stick around that long. A lot is going on.

Where are we going? — deeper, sweeter, wider

Building community, The Mission, , , ,

The direction I am pointing applies to everyone, of course, but I am especially thinking of the dear people of Circle of Hope. By the time Lent is over they will have persevered for 20 years! By the time this post is over, I hope to contribute how we see where we might be in ten more (and you too, reader, wherever you are).

We’ve already taken our first steps into the future. We called it our “second act” when we were hit by the inspiration at the end of 2014. Then we started acting inspired: restructuring, redeploying and redeveloping. I wrote about it here and here and other places, too. It has been a great ride.

So we did that.

Now what? In late spring we will get together and consider where we are going and make a new map. So more will become clear by then. But already the first steps are showing where we are headed. We are an amazing group of people who can absorb change, work hard and imagine big. It is hard to say all that we will be able to do, but I think we are heading this direction: deeper, sweeter and wider.

Deeper

Our capacity to know God and teach others to follow Jesus is deepening. I think Jesus has spoken to us like he spoke to his first disciples, only metaphorically:

“Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4).

We are doing that. We are letting our nets down into the deep water of the Spirit. I am especially excited to see the budding fruit of two new developments. First, I hope you have heard about Gifts for Growing. We decided to gather our resources for getting from here to there spiritually and lay them out on a more cohesive track, starting with the first seeds of faith in “earth” and moving toward the deep waters of grace in “water.” The cells and Sunday meetings are still the main places where a person gets what they need to grow, but we are organizing our teachers to give us what they’ve got: exploring money, relationships, the Bible, spiritual disciplines and more.  Second, Circle Counseling is growing. We’ve added five new counselors and a new building at 1226 S. Broad. The counselors will also add gifts to grow on. The Hallowood Institute Gwen is starting will undoubtedly share its wealth with us too.

We have kind of reached a tipping point of giftedness. Our fisherpeople, so to speak, are equipped with boats and nets and they bring up a lot to feed us from the deep water of the Spirit. That capacity is a great treasure to spend over the next ten years.

Sweeter

You can’t really go back and have do-overs on relationships, at least not in real time. The experience of community we have shared is irreplaceable, unrepeatably sweet. But like good long term relationships (like I have been blessed to experience with Gwen) community is sweeter as the years go by. In each other, we have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter tells us to get rid of what could be bitter and honor what is so sweet.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.  As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:1-5).

I don’t know how we did it, for sure, but we ended up with sweet relationships that can span the whole region. The cells and teams are so often sweet places to be. They don’t feel like obligations, they seem like treasures. I am glad for that. The capacity to build and preserve authentic, covenant community is the thing we can lead with (like we said last week) when we present Jesus to the future. I can see us doing it in the quarterly compassion efforts from last year, in the restored covenant that has been proposed, in how the Cell Leader Coordinators take themselves and their cell leaders seriously, in the talk back from last night at South Broad and how we included the new people in the room. We are not sugary, but we are sweet.

Someone told me last week, as people sometimes do, that they forgot what they had in our community until they visited another version of the church (like ones some of the presidential candidates come from). We are blessed. No matter what bitterness the world serves us, we will form an alternative that tastes like Jesus in the next ten years.

Wider

This is the most exciting (and most frightening) place the Lord has us going in the next ten years: there may be twice as many of us. We are getting ready for those new people and the gifts they bring to the mix right now. I know God has opened up my heart wide to them. It’s like Paul says his heart was to those entering the first churches,

“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses…;  known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed;  sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, [everyone], and opened wide our hearts to you” (2 Cor 6:4…10).

A lot of churches at twenty years old are committed to preserving the good things they’ve got going. By the time they are forty they are perfecting their spiritual combover. We opted for a makeover. We have changed some element of most things we do — and some things (like Nate, Ben, Rachel and me!) are totally retooled. The pastors are “getting out there” meeting new people in new ways. Likewise, we have new events that give new ways for people to connect. The apprentice pastors agreed on a plan to take our Sunday meetings on the road into new areas of the region, so look for that very soon.

I think we should double our size before ten years is up, maybe long before. That’s not because bigger is better. It is because we have what people need. Our community can embrace them. And the world craves what we have.

I again watched most of the movies that are up for awards this year. I think most of them are some turn, dark or vengeful, on the myth of the hero. The world can’t help looking at itself telling itself stories about itself. Jesus manages to escape his own imprisonment in the monomyth again and again. We tell His older story well. I am delighted to offer a better hope than the tired tale the world keeps producing. It is great to see people come to know God as they meet a missional people – us, and so many other Jesus followers all over the world. They’ll get deeper, sweeter and wider with us.