Zoe

Wisdom from the Lion (Aslan) of the tribe of Judah

Well, I am a CS (jack) Lewis freak. The movie Prince Caspian is coming out later in May so I thought I would give a quote from the book Prince Caspian...

"Welcome, child," Aslan said.

"Aslan, " said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Living in grace

"The Christian stands not under the dictatorship of a legalistic 'you ought' but in the magnetic field of Christian freedom under the empowering of the 'YOU MAY.'" Helmut Thielicke

Arete Again

I was asked by a friend to write an article for a monthly group in Seattle called the Fellowship. The article topic is on transformational leadership...here is what I wrote for them. Interestingly enough the Fellowship is a weekly prayer breakfast that has been in existence for approximately 50 years. They helped to found the network that is now the Presidents Prayer Breakfast.

Hmmm

I know that this is a rather interesting way to begin an article but it is most appropriate. When Mitch asked me to write and speak, I was honored and humbled of course. I was honored because Mitch “dropped into” my life at a time when I began to look at who I was in private and who I was in public, only to see a few glaring gaps between the two. He has always been somewhat of a mentor to me, Thus, I was honored…..and humbled!

The ideas began to immediately flood my mind and the ideas have not stopped. What has been interesting to me in this dynamic is that I have rarely thought intentionally about a theology and methodology of leadership that forms a framework and context that is strong enough to sustain one through the ebbs and flows of strategic movements. It has been something that I have just been and done. What I have come to realize is that who and how I am are more thoughtful than I had initially been aware. Which leads me to this moment in time where a deadline to turn this in looms large. So now, it is time to write. The following is my thinking to this point in what should prove to be a lifelong journey and dialogue into leadership in the largest sense of the word. It is written as an offering; reverently, prayerfully, and for your reflection. My prayerful offering is that this may, in some way, satisfy a need in your life to be encouraged on your journey as a leader that is Christian. Look at the following as a buffet. Take what is helpful and leave what is not but at least peruse all of the fine foods and taste at all that is here. My underlying goals in writing this are to dialogue about leadership in ways that take us deeper, yet remain accessible and simultaneously practical. I hope to do this with a sense of authenticity and vulnerability. Coram Deo (In the face of God)!

A Reluctant Participant

The truth is that I never really wanted to be a leader. I really don’t like the pressure.  What is interesting about my personal journey as a leader is that leadership has always pursued me, sought me, and ultimately found me.  I remember being elected a captain of my High School hockey team. It was the first time I was ever in a legitimate leadership position with a title that actually meant something. What an honor but with roles come increased responsibility. This plaguing sense of reluctancy has followed me wherever I have gone. It has led me to Pastoral roles in five churches in three states, and to a variety of non – profit leadership roles. I am, therefore, a reluctant participant.

Leadership at the most simplistic level, as has been argued by some, is people who lead.  In other words, leaders lead. It goes without saying that if no one is following then you are not leading. So, what is leadership? I have always tried to live into and out of a definition that understands leadership as a holy influence in another person’s life.  My passion in life is to be used by God to have a trinitarian influence on the life of someone else.  Let me flesh this out in the following ways. First, I will argue that one’s God determines one’s character. In other words who or what our God is drives everything about who and how we are. This is the raw volition of my will to follow and pursue the Christian God. In this initial section I would like to discuss God’s interiority. The interior life of God with God becomes the infinite Trinity place for the space of the leader to practice leadership.  Secondly, who one’s God is determines our Arête. Arête is a Latin word for character and virtue which forms the title for this article. The one we are aligned with cosmically is the one who informs and forms the interior life of the leader. This is the unseen work of a leader that precedes but also provides the framework for what is seen.  When we fully understand the inner workings of the interior life of the Trinity then we can live more fully into our own interior life of Arête again.  A leader cannot short circuit these two areas in one’s interior life. They converge to form the basis for what is seen.  Character-less leadership is not and option.  I will argue that it is time to return and demand character from our leaders.  Notice I did not say perfection, I am asking for Arête, for virtue and character, and not perfection. The final section of the article is how do we live in accordance with who our God is and who we are in the soil of where we are called, whether it be the boardroom, the showroom, the classroom, the locker-room, or the pulpit. I have entitled this the praxis segment and it is where we are seen as a leader in real time. It is the convergence of who God is and who we are in real time. This is significant because leadership is always in real time, spontaneous yet with wisdom, clarity and insight—at least that is the intent. So enjoy!

God’s Interiority

God exists apart from creation co-equally and co-eternally in three persons yet sharing the same essence. This is the nature of the interior life of the Trinity.  It is what German theologian Jurgen Moltmann calls the nature of the Trinity “like for like.” Moltmann draws heavily on a Russian orthodox painter Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity which is engaging for me as a leader. In fact, I have found it to be so riveting it is the front of my business card. The icon was painted in roughly 1425, just preceeding the time of the Protestant Reformation and forms the model of leadership that I will ask us to consider.  It features the perichoresus of the divine inner working of a trinitarian God.  The word perichoresus means circle dance. I want to highlight five key elements of the interior life of this dancing God, whom we worship. By the way it is also where we get our English word equivalent, chorus line. I have asked Mitch to include a photocopy of the icon of the Holy Trinity.

First, notice that these three figures are sitting around a table and are in a circular format.  This is a social God that is always in relationship to and with one another. A leader is a social person always in relationship to God, themselves and their environment.  An effective leader is not silo-ed or an entity unto themselves. Secondly, notice the titling of their heads. The head of the Father figure on the left is tilted toward the Jesus figure in the middle and the Spirit figure on the far right. The heads of the Jesus figure in the middle and the Holy Spirit figure on the right is tilted toward the Father figure on the far left. They are in a mutuality of relationship, a circle dance, in the words of Moltmann, “like for like.” This is important in today’s context, because we are no longer hierarchical; we are mutual, consensus building and grassroots. A leader is always interacting with multiple variables at once seeking respect, love and wisdom at the same time.  Third, notice how these figures form a virtual cross with you the observer at the foot. You the participant and the Jesus figure form the vertical beam, while the Father and the Spirit figure form the horizontal beam. The passion of God is the environment where leadership takes place at all levels.  Therefore, leading into and out of pain and passion is the essence of leadership at every turn. Fourth, it is from the passion of God that we experience the unconditional love of God.  Leadership is always practiced into and out of the love of God.  Fifth, as you enter into a multi-dimensional gaze of the icon there is room for you to become part of this dance. This is the open nature of the Christian trinitarian God.  This is of utmost importance for our discussion because I am arguing that leadership is a holy influence. It is our task as leaders to point people, invite people, to engage people to become key dancers in this cosmic Trinity-dance. When we are the conduit that God the Holy Spirit uses to influence another to this holy circle dance then we are leaders!  Obviously there is more to be said about this cosmic interior life of God. However, for our purposes I suggest that it is this trinitarian God that we, as Christian leaders, surrender to and seek to draw others to dance with as well. When we are fully in this dance with this specific notion of God, there is the space to shape our own arête as image bearers of God to the world!

Arête Again

Who our God is determines and drives who we are; it is the basis of our interior spiritual formation. It is also the genesis of our interior life.  I read a remarkable phrase by Stanley Hauerwaus, the Dean of Ethics at Duke Divinity School, he writes, and I paraphrase “the reason why so many leaders are not worth following is because there is no person of significant character worth aligning with.”  I am struck by this statement. When I have looked at my conversion to Christ and watched my behavior over the last twenty years there have certainly been moments where I have witnessed gaps in my character. I find these moments to be great learning opportunities and times of personal transformation and growth. It has led me into a recent study of this and related matters of vices and ensuing Christian virtues. I will suggest that integrity is bringing together who I am in private with who I am in public. The curriculum for this closing of the gap is arête formation. There has been a glaring vacuum in this genre of leadership development. We are quick to talk about alignment with the Trinity and then we immediately jump to strategies of change, capacity building, and value added leadership. We, as a culture are more concerned with outcomes and techniques than we are with building and growing quality people. Yet, where is the virtue?  It is startlingly absent in our curriculum and discipleship at all levels. I believe that this has been to the detriment of our public politic both within and outside the church. Until we close this gap we can all expect to see more failings, and adultescent (this is not a mis-spelling, it is intentional) like behavior! Again I am not arguing for perfection but rather the pursuit of excellence, especially in the arena of Arete Again. This entire remarkable debate in secular discourse between the public life and the private life being severed is difficult, if not, impossible for leaders seeking to have a holy influence in their spheres of operation.

In order to lead well as people exhibiting a holy influence on others, we say a resounding “Yes” to God and to Godly arête and “NO” to other characterless-ness (I am not sure if that is a word-but it is in my article-ha). When I say “Yes” to this dance with a dancing God I say bring on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I say with equal passion a resounding “NO” to greed, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, anger, and lust. In order for a Yes to have meaning there must be a NO!  This is true freedom to have and exert power as a holy influence. Freedom is not just freedom from certain rules it is a freedom to live another way; the way of a dancing God, the way of holy influence, the way of Arete Again, and with great freedom that shows the world another way of living. This freedom is not a shaming freedom, rather it is a free freedom. Helmut Thielicke writes, “…the Christian stands, not under the dictatorship of a legalistic ‘You ought,’ but in the magnetic field of Christian freedom, under the empowering of the ‘You may.’” My friends “You may” live and lead differently when your arête interior life is aligned with a dancing perichoretic trinitarian God who says lead on my friend, lead on!

Praxis

This is the practical element of leadership. It is the external life of what is seen in a leader. It is a Hegelian word that brings together the interior life of God at work with the interior life of arête in a leader. This praxis and coming together converges in the moment of Godly leadership. It is the practice of a leader to be wise in the split second or a moment in real time.  I find that this is where most of leadership acts in the world and forms the central theater and environment of the practice of leadership. It transcends decision making. Decision making can be done by anyone; we are talking about a holy influence that brings together all that we have discussed to this point and actualizes it in a convergence of love, wisdom, and in a way that influences a person, situation or circumstance to move more fully into the trinitarian dance.

It is in this space that I find leadership most difficult. When the influences of a secular and whatever culture push me to the extreme of my personal boundaries of character and integrity that I have difficulty as a leader.  In a world where there is so much subjectivity surrounding issues of scruples, sexuality, and personal boundaries that I find myself stretched very often and being as elastic as I can be.  It is in those moments that I must be wise, and point people, not to a personal ethic but to a dance with God and allow God to worry about what transformation and sanctification actually looks like in another person.

Endtroduction

It has been my prayer that this brief conversation would spur you on and encourages you to lead on with depth, power, and intentionality as we are tethered together with a dancing God who transforms our arête in order to lead well in real time as ones who point people to the holy other.  I have captioned this portion of my brief article as the endtroduction because we are not ending, rather, we are beginning. We are writing the first few words of what it might look like to lead with depth, accessibility and practicality.

On the back of my business card is a question that I will leave with you. It is intended to provoke thoughtful conversation, a holy influence and intentionality in all relationships.  The question is, “Would you like to dance?”  I hope you will…

An Angular Moment of Hope and Joy

Usually we have a great view facing west over the Puget Sound.  We can see the water, Vashon Island, and the Olympic Mountains on a clear day.  I got out of my car and had a rare moment of seeing a squall line of showers sweeping over the area across the water.  The wind picked up, it was piercing through my Mac Mor jacket.  The really interesting thing about this storm line was I couldn't even see the water, let alone Vashon or the Olympic Mountains.  It was a rare blanket of grey, dark, cold, and startling. The rain kicked in and pelted my face. I ran in the house. By the time I dropped off my book bag, and threw my car keys in my jacket pocket, the sky was getting lighter, but still raining hard. Pretty soon the water, Vashon Island and the Olympic Mountains were visible. It was still grey, however, with wind and rain at my house, but in the distance it was clearing. Within five more minutes the line of showers were gone and it was sunny, the water glistened, the Island and mountains were there in all splendor. I must say -- it was really beautiful.

It reminded me of Friday to Sunday in Holy Week. A moment of darkness and then light. That was a moment of great hope and joy at my house yesterday. C.S. Lewis writes in Screwtape Letters, "Joy is the meaningful acceleration of our relationship with God." That line from Lewis raced into my mind. How true.  The really powerful thing about Lewis was his "angular" ability to speak into the rain and wind of our times. We live in a dark land--just look at the five movies nominated for Academy Awards last month. All pretty dark. As if Hollywood needed a hug last year.

That was Friday but we are Sunday people. The darkness and grey of our culture is invaded by the angular truth of Lewis when we live as Easter Sunday people because of the risen Son of God in Christ. I can picture an arrow piercing the grey rain cloud with the hope that comes when we allow Joy to accelerate our relationship with God. That is my prayer this week for you and your family!

Purple People

I don’t know about you but I really like this time of year. Finally the temperatures are warming a bit, the sun has reappeared and my countenance begins to lift.  This is spring time in Seattle, what a joy!  Let me write about a few serendipity snapshots that I hope to tether together in a meaningful manner.

*****

I was reading, I cannot remember where, that the less body weight you carry from middle age to old age the better. I remember thinking that makes sense. I need to get back into shape and try and lose the sins of my youth located primarily around my middle core. I joined the Highline Athletic Club to embark on a journey of losing that middle. I learned quickly that exercise and physiology had changed a bit since I was a member there about four years ago.  The trainers were talking about exercising on unstable environments. So, I began to fumble my way through all of the newest and latest techniques that included standing on half deflated balls of various sizes while doing weight work, sit-up crunches on a large ball and many more that made me feel like I was going to lose my balance and fall off. In the act of falling it would make me look very uncool in the midst of all those muscle bound testosterone-types.  This I obviously did not want to do. I learned that I did indeed get a better workout on unstable surfaces.  This is due to the fact that you have to engage all of your bodies muscle groups to lift, bend or curl.  Through this process one is able to get a more efficient and total body workout.

*****

I was reading about a framework for the seasons of life by Walter Bruggemann that he described as orientation, disorientation (read unstable surface), and new orientation. I thought this is a great framework to experience all of life from, whether it be life – stage, a crisis, an illness, loneliness, family break-up, chronic pain and illness, habitual sin or anything that leaves us reeling and wondering why and where God is.  We all go through moments when life is good, there is orientation.  We are sailing along and smiling, laughing, even loving life.

And, then, usually out of nowhere we are struck, by something that seems to blindside us, out of the blue—disorientation, read as unstable surface. This is the gymnasium where and when God can best be seen to do God’s greatest work. It could be simply the grace and mercy to make it through. It could the refining fire to remove sin or a habitual vice that has left us more enslaved than free.  Whatever the work of the life sculptor, one thing is true we are vulnerable and lay open and naked before God, the world and ourselves. By the way the Greek work for gymnasium is gymnos and means “naked.” In this sense we are stripped of all the veneer, the pretense and the denial. We are raw; we are, well, human. God is most at work right in this very tender place. It is the whisper of God in a white noise world reclaiming us, repositioning us, retexting us, and rewriting us for a hopeful tomorrow.

What is interesting is that through this season of disorientation there is a fluid like movement to new orientation. A radically new orientation whereby one lives a life without addiction, or a loved one, free of denial, bondage, anger, hopelessness, and despair. This new life is less about domestication and more about freedom.  It does not come as an autonomous rugged individual. It usually involves worship, silence because prayer is difficult if not impossible, community, and the text of Scripture. This is why CHURCH MATTERS. This new orientation is a life free from commodity and anxiety. It is a life that is lived for meaning, shared significance and shalom.

*****

It occurs to me that this is exactly what Lent is all about; orientation (life as we once knew it in all its familiarity), disorientation (death of Jesus Christ on a cross) and new orientation (a resurrection life in Jesus).  This is the Easter story. It is Gospel. Good news! That is the color of Purple, the color of Lent, the color of hope, the color of you and me. Live into the mystery and awe of the color purple. It is interesting to me that when you combine the colors red and blue you get purple.  It is also noteworthy to remark that during this season we are embedded in dialogue about red states and blue states. How about kingdom of God space to be purple?  I like that because with Christ at the center we can transcend political differences to reach a consensus with Jesus at the center.  It is tempting to be red and blue, whether politically or as a church or even as a pastor. Let's set those aside for the color purple. Find the chronos time to allow for kairos time and holy-time to take you to a place where your soul is refreshed.

It was a good 2 miles

I wanted to break from my typical rabble with a victory to share.  About ten years ago I came down with a chronic pain syndrone known as Fibromyalgia Syndrome. It is in the same family as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Restless Leg Syndrome and the like. Which means they dont know what causes it or why.  I have "suffered" with it ever since. I never thought that I would be able to do the things I was able to do in my younger years like run more than one mile without paying for it big time.  I wanted to share that I ran 2 miles yesterday. What a huge milestone!  I am paying for it today but I did it.  I am no match or a marathon or even a 10k but I am pretty pumped about it.  It took a long time to work up to it but...it has been accomplished...Yeah baby!

A Mutiny of Mercy

In Luke's gospel two things never happen. First, Jesus never asks someone to be born again. At least he does not do it in the formulaic fashion that we have grown accustomed to in the last 50 years. The second directive is never to try to decide what he really said or did not say. At least he does not do it in the sense that we have grown accustomed to in the last 50 years. Both are fruitless and to enter into an adventure of missing the point, according to Tony Campolo. In the Gospel of Luke we are asked, taught about, invited to participate in a invading mutiny of mercy and grace. This new invasion is not political it is spiritual and known as the Kingdom of God. This phrase is used by Jesus 38 times in the stories of Luke. It is high time we start to use it in our own stories. It is our framing story. We are called to participate in the antithesis of the imperial narratives of the day and so we are encouraged to enter into the same mutiny of grace today. A great mutiny that is an upside down peaceable kingdom--it is never what is the most plausible or instinctual action. Rather, it is usually quite the paradoxical opposite.

We are called to get de-framed from the imperial political, sociological, economic and ecological predominant paradigms of the day to be reframed into a new politic, community, economy of generosity and ecology of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind that is known as the Kingdom of God. In our day we are called to do to our enemies before they do it to us-this tends to be the primary politic. We are called to isolate as narcissistic individuals and be suspicious, judgmental and fearful of those not like us. We are called to accumulate pleasure, be financially secure, and develop our portfolios at the expense of those who have nothing. Afterall, they just need to get a job to provide or themselves, so the story and predominant belief system indoctrinates us. More than anything else, because of the industrial and new technological revolution, we rule over our environment, not participate in and with the environment. The progressive agenda roams the world seeking to accumulate, devour and consume. The First President of Kenya, President Kenyatta and Bishop Desmond Tutu said, "When the missionaries came to our country we had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They asked us to pray. We closed our eyes and prayed. When we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the land." This is an oversimplification but one that I and others could develop and articulate quite easily.

However, the mutiny in mercy calls us to stand apart of and from this heavy indoctrination to become unfettered by the secular framing story to get reframed into the Kingdom of God story. A story that asks us to get transformed and reformed, to get de-framed and reframed into a mutiny of mercy--in Jesus and his Kingdom. It is a framing story that...
*Says enough to greed and yes to generosity
*Says enough to nationaistic militarism and yes to a peaceable kingdom
*Says enough to plundering and pillaging the environment and make us co inhabitants in a global
kingdom to see our environment as the theater where God's wonder, awe and grandeur are on
continual display
*Says that the growing and ever widening gap between the rich and poor is immoral, unjust and
unacceptable in 2008

What about you will you join this kingdom of God, mutiny of mercy? Time to stand up for something so that we aviod falling for anything....Hey church no excuse is good enough! I want to hear more from you about what this Kingdom of God is in 2008. Please write and give me your statements that describe this mutiny of mercy, this irresistible revolution....jump in and join the conversation...

From Grumbling to Gratitude

As I sit and write I am still in the throes of Christmas preparations. So it only seems appropriate to push back for a moment to create some space and put into writing something of what I have been feeling for the last month.  Just below the veneer of the outer expressions of my life is an overwhelming sense of gratitude and thanks to God.  I have very deep feelings of thanksgiving and praise for what God has been able to accomplish in and though us in a short amount of time.

I came across this writing by Chaucer that expresses much of what I have simmering just below my emotional surface. 

There is at the back of all our lives an abyss of light, more blinding and unfathomable than any abyss of darkness; and it is the abyss of actuality, of existence, of the fact that things truly are, and that we ourselves are incredible and sometimes almost incredulously real.  It is the fundamental fact of being, as against not being; it is unthinkable, yet we cannot unthink it, though we may sometimes be unthinking about it; unthinking and especially unthanking. For he who has realized this reality knows that it does outweigh, literally to infinity, all lesser regrets or arguments for negation, and that under all our grumblings there is a subconscious substance of gratitude.

It is this last phrase which captures my attention.  The phrase that under all our life situations there is a “subconscious substance of gratitude.” This, to me, is a magnificent picture of how gratitude can transform even the most difficult life situations and circumstances.  It is a most precious gift that a soft heart will bloom and emerge into one that is grateful, thankful and appreciative. So in this writing I allow to become conscious what is present within me in the subconscious- that God is everpresent in our lives whether we give Him that expression or not!  This is the wonder of Advent.  That Christ has come, Christ is here and Christ will come again!  In other words, there never has been a time when God has not been present with us---Emmanuel!

May the New Year be a time when your subconscious gratitude will be given the water to bloom forth in a conscious expression of praise and gratitude in the way of Jesus, the way of faith and the way of transformation!  May you experience the joy of the journey and carry this with you to everyone you meet.  Peace of Christ to you and your family this new year!

Our Impossibilities -- God's Possibilities

Luke 1:26-38
This past week at our Sunday evening service, the well, we began in silence. I asked everyone to sit and listen in silence, to nothing, to their surroundings, to themselves, to God. I asked them to think of one word that describes what they are looking for out of our time together. We came back and shared those words. I wrote them down and wanted to share them with you today. The words were; assurance, reassurance, encounter, anchoring, stability, peace, tranquility to name a few…I had to work hard at letting those words sink into the soil of my own life, but when they did they became the framework for me this past week. Those words are words of searching. Not a skeptical searching but a faithful search, a humble search, a come to us searching.

We are all searching, and ultimately—whether we know it or not—we are searching for God. Ultimately we are searching for the ultimate and the ultimate is God. It is not easy searching for God; it is not easy waiting for God—especially in a world of instant “get-ification.” But here we are today—searching, waiting, wondering, and looking. Almost a thousand years ago, St. Anselm of Canterbury said, “God is that greater than which cannot be thought.”

Think about it. Think about how great God is, then go further and further again, and again into infinity. We can stretch our minds as high and as deep and as far as our minds can take us, and at the furthest point upon which our minds can stretch us—we still have not “thought” about God. God is quite a bit further than which we are able to think. “God is that greater - than which - cannot be thought.”

God is quite literally inconceivable. And this is precisely why God was conceived as a human being in the womb of a woman—the Virgin Mary. Because even in thought, we cannot rise up to grasp God, God stooped down to us in Jesus, who is “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” And so we sing, “O come, O come Emmanuel!”

And so we search. As we are searching for God, the good news is that God is searching for us. Even better than this, God has found us. The great question is not whether we have found God but whether we have found ourselves being found by God. God is not lost in the infinite cosmos. We were, or, as the case may be, we are lost.

Our impossibilities, intellectually and materially provide the soil for the possibilities of God. That God would stoop and become one of us so that we can be found by God finding us! This is the soil of hope. Therefore, hope becomes our first great word in experiencing Emmanuel through the words of waiting- this advent season!

To aide us in this trans-rational hopeful finding ourselves found by God we need the stories that take us there and the artist who can soften the soil of our minds, melt us, tilling us, making us capable again to shake us from our own impossibilities and lead us, ever so gently, into the arms of God’s possibilities.

Madeleine L’Engle helped me to understand this many years ago. To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.

Obedience is an unpopular word today, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it is a symphony, a painting, a chalk drawing, a grunge band ballad, a hip hop rhyme, or a story for a small child. Yet each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, “Here I am. Enflesh me. Give me life. Birth me.” And the artist either says, “May it be to me as you have said,” and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses. Not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of young Mary.

Mary, a mere child, is called upon by God in the form of an angel-Gabriel, to do what, in the world’s eyes, is impossible, and instead of saying, “she can’t,” she replied immediately, “Be it unto me as you have said.” This simple, “YES” in a world of “No,” transforms our impossibilities into God’s possibilities. With a little faith comes a big dose of hope.

What would have happened to Mary, and to us, if she had said No to the angel? She could have but the faith and hope of a child is easier to believe in an angel visitation on behalf of God than an educated progressive. After all, this story is simply a metaphor isn’t it? How difficult we find this and these stories. How could one young girl contain in her womb the power which created the galaxies? How could that power be found in the fragility and humility of an infant? It is more than our scientific, limited and literal-mindedness can cope with and even bear. So the logical conclusion that many reach for today is-this is just metaphor. I find it ironic because faith by definition is not something which lay within the realm of verification. I submit that if faith can be verified, we would nullify it and we certainly would have no room left for HOPE. We would only be left with our best efforts. To that I say just look around at our world today to see “our best effort!”

Mary did not always understand. But one does not have to understand to be obedient. Instead of understanding---that intellectual understanding that we are so fond of—there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which we are not yet able to understand. Like the artist that remains obedient to a work because the words and images mean even more than the writer or painter or composer ever knew they meant. It is then that the artist has been listing. At the moment of this writing I am listening to Bach violin concerto. Did he know how influential his music would become for centuries? I doubt it, yet he remained obedient—by listening and birthing and therefore becoming the salve of salvation through music by offering hope to a hopeless world. Think of the powerful shaping and remembering capacities that the images of the sacraments have through the centuries and millenniums in a world that is so easy to forget. And when we listen, we too, are led to places we do not expect, into adventures that we do not always understand. Yet through our impossibilities are God’s possibilities.

Through our searching we remain obedient because the essence of faith is that in our impossibilities are always embedded God’s possibilities. When we are found by God finding us, we live hopeful lives. Not lives of despair. Hope is that which lies on the other side of reason. Hope is what makes life bearable, with all of its disappointments, tragedies, ambiguities and sudden startling joys and smiles. My friends in our impossibilities are birthed God’s possibilities. May we be people of hope this waiting season!

The Words of Waiting

Words. Image. They are powerful! They have the ability to create and frustrate, build up and tear down, birth new realities and preserve the old banalities. They, in a sense, are our realities. It is interesting that God created using words, spoken, articulated and alive. The Word is Grace-soaked and God alive. The word spoken brought order to the chaos and created ex nihilo, (out of nothing) something! That is why we stop and unwrap at this time of year words that not only have meaning but produce purpose for us as people of faith.

Word and image (story) go together in any pursuit of understanding in the Christian faith. Our fundamental Word, after all, became incarnate, visible and tactile in Jesus. Word and image really cannot be separated, even though we try it often enough. Word without image easily vaporizes into an abstraction; image without word can, and almost always does, degenerate into an idol. Word and image need one another.

And so, our great words lead us into Advent anticipation. Words like Emmanuel, God with us. This word is an incredible reminder that we are not alone. That our human journey is taken by a God who understands and loves so much that God became one of us. This is our hope for a life that allows us to be noticed, recognized, attended to, and called by our first name, by the Trinitarian God of the universe. Incarnation, God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ. The humility of God in Christ allows God to get bigger by becoming smaller, taking on the form of a child, a teenager, a man, and a crucified man at that. Through this crucifixion, death and resurrection, our despair becomes joy and our angst becomes peace. This crucible life that Jesus undergoes is one of extreme love for humankind, past, present and future. These italicized words are just a few of the words that we will explore this holy-day (holiday) season as we seek to experience Emmanuel through the words of waiting.

And so our images, the stories that burn in our collective consciousness and become our framework to make sense out of a life that seems more chaotic than ever. Stories and images of Angels announcing, a virgin giving birth, a babe in the straw, wise men from afar, a Messiah promised and delivered only to return again. When our words go flat through repetition and familiarity, we need these images and stories to reawaken our imagination into play and to sharpen our awareness of and participation in the word and the Word-made-flesh. Join us for an incredible line-up of worship experiences that promise to bring together word and image into powerful advent anticipations as we EXPERIENCE EMMANUEL THROUGH THE WORDS OF WAITING….