Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

I need the desert

A life in the Spirit, , , ,

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

(TS Eliot in Ash Wednesday)

I have been looking forward to Ash Wednesday. I live in a societal atmosphere, among many recovering evangelicals, among the high-flyers of Center City, where depression is constantly repressed and the sunny face of an optimistic false self is plastered over everything in order to sell it. I need a good excuse to be my completely needy self — no economic recovery, no fulfilling my promise through education, no making a name for myself professionally, no perfect children, friends, experiences or body, no religious self-justification, just Jesus and me in the desert. Just Jesus and me honestly facing temptation.

I have been looking forward to being driven by the Spirit into my yearly desert of discipline to help me enter a deeper atmosphere of interior silence where I might hear the word again. It will be hard to stay there — but I am going to do it on vacation, I am going to do it at the birthday parties, I am going to do it when people think Lent is silly or inexplicable, I am going to do it when no one cares if I do it or not, or when they care too much about whether I am succeeding at it, or when they are irritated or embarrassed to be with me. And since I am the pastor, I am going to do it whether anyone shows up to start it with me, or anyone reads the books I suggested, or anyone comes to the PMs.

Jesus needed the desert. I need the desert.

Finding some peace

A life in the Spirit, ,

We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.
Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.
He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
Feet trample it down –
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.
Isaiah 26:1-6

This just keeps on happening, doesn’t it? Lofty cities are laid low.

I have to admit, I kind of long for the day when the feet of the oppressed walk freely over the rubble the high flyers have made of the world on their way to God’s city. I am not sure at all that God will give me my vengeance (or that my true self truly cares about it). It doesn’t matter, anyway, because right now the rubble is piling on the oppressed and I am wondering if I have any equipment at all to dig them out. There is not a lot of time to care about how to get even with who did this to us!!

Parker Palmer depressed

Parker Palmer was on Bill Moyer’s Journal (old men saying wise things) this week. One of our friends told Gwen to record it. He said his personal depression was mirrored in and mirroring the depression of our financial system. It made me kind of alarmed. I know a lot of depressed and distressed people right now, and the number seems to be growing. Plus, so many bad things happened to the church this week – sexual immorality is uncovered, financial ineptitude discovered, a former lease goes to collection, weak people raise alarm (as they do when things are generally bad – they soak up and channel the feelings), people lose jobs, people hole up and act scared. I really began to think we are under general attack.

When Isaiah’s city was being brought low, God gave him a vision of the city whose walls are God’s salvation. I also began to think that a wonderful change must be about to happen. I’m not so old yet, but I am old enough to know that supposedly bad times (like your personal depression) are often the beginnings of the next great time. Now if we can just keep our minds on what God (who makes something out of nothing) is going to do, so we can have some peace in the midst of this mess!

Teilo and his famous head

A life in the Spirit, The Mission, , , ,

Today is St. Teilo’s Day. When we went to Llandaff Cathedral, outside Cardiff, Wales, last summer, the docent said we could open the cupboard that was around back, behind the altar, and get a peek at Teilo’s head. The great church planter’s skull was preserved there, as a relic of a life admirably lived. He died sometime after 560, which was not an easy time to live.

Skull cup

I think his story might encourage a few of the people I have been talking to who think their time to live is pretty challenging, too — especially the people who either need to get their head into the game of church planting again, or who feel like the church has their head stuffed in a cupboard and they don’t like it.

We’ve had some dialogue and a meeting about Circle of Hope Broad and Washington, lately, and one of the words that has risen to the surface is that we need some revival and reformation. We need to get back to basics and give our gifts. As a result, some patterns that people have established in relationships and mission are getting disrupted; people are feeling challenged, and things are changing for the better (already!). Some people feel excited; some people don’t feel so good. Especially for the people who have been giving it their all, it feels like a bit of an insult – “I give my gifts and resources already. I can’t do more.”

Teilo on a stag

What I have been saying to a few of the stalwarts, where it fits, is, “The problem is not that you don’t do things, the problem is that you just do your things. You might not be a church planter, but you need to concern yourself about whether the church gets planted. You might not have time to care for the children but your love has to be great enough to care about whether they are cared for. And if you do lead the worship, or care for kids, or lead a cell or do the limited thing you can do, you need to fill it with enough love, and let it be filled with God’s Spirit, so that it can make an impact beyond the borders of your smallness.”

Maybe this is what the famous story of Teilo is about. One day his settlement was attacked and they were robbed of all their stores of fuel. In the cold, Wales winter, that meant they had to immediately go to the woods and cut down more trees. Their work was made easier when a great stag came to help them by delivering the wood with his antlers. Teilo is often pictured riding a stag. Life gets hard. Irritating things must be done. God shows up.

It will be great when you and creation are in such harmony that you can ride stags. Maybe that won’t happen. That’s no big deal. You can be in harmony with God’s own Spirit. The challenges of this day can be met. And even the small things you can do will probably end up magnified, if you allow them to be in the hands of Jesus. Let’s keep our heads in the game — it’s bigger than our incapability.