ash

a prayer for ash wednesday

O Lord, who hast mercy upon all,
take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me
the fire of thy Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone,
and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore Thee,
a heart to delight in Thee,
to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake.
Amen.
- St. Ambrose

mewithoutYou - Paper Hanger

view lyrics in pop-up window so you can read while watching the video

Not one motion of her gesture could I forget
The prettiest bag lady I ever met
Pushing her cart in the rain
Then gathering plastic and glass
She watched the day pass
Not hour by hour
But pain by pain
If I was a basket filled with holes
Then she was the sand I tried to hold
And ran out behind me
As I swung with some invisible hands

I stopped believing, you start to move
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine
I stopped my leaving and the better man bloomed
And you can pour us out and we won't mind

I was dead, then alive
She was like wine turned to water and turned back to wine
You can pour us out, we won't mind
A scratch around the mouth of the glass
My life is no longer mine

If you're still looking for a blanket
Sweetie, I'm sorry, I'm no sort of fabric
But if you need a tailor
Then take your torn shirt, and stumble up my stairs
And mumble your pitiful prayers
And in your tangled night's sleep, our midnight needles go to work
Until all comfort and fear flows in one river
Down on the shelf by the mirror where you see yourself whole
And it makes you shiver

I stopped believing, you start to move
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine
I stopped my leaving and the better man bloomed
And you can pour us out and we won't mind

I was dead, then alive
She was like wine turned to water and turned back to wine
You can pour us out, we won't mind
A scratch around the mouth of the glass
My life is no longer mine

Our lives our not our own even- the wind plays still.
All I felt was fire and bone
And movement, movement, oh!
If they ask you for a sign of the Father
Tell them it's movement, movement,
movement of...
hope

with or without you

From my Celtic Daily Prayer book this morning:

In Your presence there is an absence
silencing my greatest fear.
It is with You that I know the essence
of what is life, now that You're near.

It is in the absence of Your presence
that I rekindle my desire;
and it is when I am without You
that I burn, an inextinguishable fire.

In Your presence there is an absence
of all that preys upon my mind;
for my heart's desire's before me,
and I leave all else behind.

It is in the absence of Your presence
that I have learned to be apart.
It is without You that I am with You;
for You are the Joy within my heart.
-Janet Rimmer

Happy Birthday Mars Hill Grand Rapids!

On Sunday, Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan celebrated 10 years. As part of the service, they had individuals from Grand Rapids and around the world share stories of how much God has done through this community. I didn't hear about it until today as I was a week behind in podcasts, so I didn't send them an email. But if I did, I would have tried to thank them for giving me new dreams about what it means to be a Christian and the Church. I think I would have mentioned some of these things that God has been teaching me through their words and actions.

Love is more than an emotion or vague good idea. Love should be how we look at our friends and enemies. Love is how we should respond to the circumstances that don't go how we expect and the people that hurt us. Love overcomes hate. Love is how God is redeeming everything. Love sacrifices itself. And nothing can stop it, so in the end, after fear and doubt and anger and sickness and death have exhausted all their efforts, love wins.

That when people don't agree with you, or they attack you, or so hurtful things about you, you don't have to defend yourself or prove that you are right, but that sometimes the best response is to smile and say "Grace and peace to you", because the things that separate us are far, far smaller the God who loves all of us.

That the most hurtful and dangerous thing to do is to start dividing people by who is in (or right) and who is out (or wrong), and begin to treat one group of people differently than another- that's hell. We might be terribly uncomfortable one day if we share the wedding feast of the lamb in heaven, and find "those people" at our table.

That Jesus broke himself open and poured himself out as a good gift. And that as Christ-followers, Jesus has invited us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out to the people around us. To "do this in remembrance of me."

That Jesus thinks we can be like him and do the things he does.

That the Church should be the safest place in the world. If you can't be honest about your failings and struggles with a church community, then something is terribly wrong, because the very point of the Church is to carry each other and love people.

And when you are failing and can only see darkness and have fear and doubt and pain and feel worthless and unloved, you don't have to go through it alone, but there are people who can daily offer you grace and peace. There is no condemnation, only joy, acceptance, every kind of imaginable good, wholeness, rest, all as freely given gifts from God.

That worrying about what will happen tomorrow will choke the life out of today, which is all we have anyway. And that wealth always promises that a little bit more will be enough, and it always comes up empty.

That our purpose and value comes solely from being and never from doing. We need to rest and take time to do nothing, and learn that even then we are still loved and accepted.

That God always hears the cries of the oppressed.

That everything is spiritual, God is not angry but he is Green, Jesus is brilliant and he wants to save Christians, and the Church, man, isn't she beautiful. ;)

That we don't need to know where we are going or why. The central, recurring theme of the Bible is a journey of God rescuing his people from slavery, teaching them how to love him and love each other, and forgiving them and restoring them when they fail so they can try again. And even if our journey hasn't lead us where we want to be, God gives us what we need for today, everyday, and he is walking with us. We can learn to stop obsessing over control of our lives and instead have faith.

That cynicism is a dead end, and the what this desperate, broken, cynical world needs most are people willing to believe that things can get better. That God hasn't given up on his creation.

I can't even begin to think of everything that I've learned since I started walking with Mars Hill 3.5 years ago (and I put up a bunch of my favorite messages here). I have a much wider, deeper, richer understanding of God than I used to. But even more important than that is the deep healing that God has been doing to my heart through this church. I may have only been to one Sunday gathering in those years, but Mars Hill is not about what happens for two hours on Sunday. Mars Hill is a community, and I'm part of that community even if we are separated by a couple thousand miles.

So to you, my brothers and sisters of the Mars Hill community- thank you, and grace and peace be with you.

who are you?

From Rob Bell's counselor, when Rob was breaking down from being the "successful pastor", trying to always be everything to everyone:


"You're job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. Anything else is sin."


Who are you?

come all you weary - thrice

christarchy

I like to think about what social structures and politics would be like if people really submitted themselves to Jesus as Lord. On a very simple level, I think it would look like Jesus in charge and everyone else equal yet submissive to each other. No command structures or authority hierarchies. No power struggles among men and women, rich and poor, young and old, modern and postmodern, Christian and not. Just everyone serving each other as best they can. Maybe it's idealistic, but I think it's what Jesus had in mind, so I'll risk a little idealism every now and then.

The folks at the Jesus Manifesto call it Christarchy as opposed to anarchy.

Here are some images and quotes that reflect the idea:


Just like the word "christianity" itself, the words "anarchy," "anarchism" and "anarchist" are abused terms. They are abused so often by the media, state historians and government officials that, by no fault of her own, the average person on the street only thinks of chaos, terrorists and random violence when the term anarchist comes up... Anarchism is a rich and powerful critique of modern society that Christians have at our fingertips. We do not wish to confuse Christianity with anarchism but we do believe that when Christianity is lived rightly it looks a lot like anarchism.
-Jesus Radicals


The world is soaked with mutual blood. When individuals commit homicide, it is a crime; it is called a virtue when it is done in the name of the state. -Cyprian





2000 years ago, the son of God was murdered by the state after preaching the subversion of arbitrary political authority and the renunciation of the chains of the temporal world, advocating absolute egalitarianism between all humans under and inspired by the infinite love of the one valid Authority, in preparation for the coming of His eternal kingdom. -Christopher Kilbourn


‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’ Who are these? Those who imitate the Divine love of others, who show forth in their own life the characteristic of the Divine energy. The Lord and Giver of good things completely annihilates anything that is without affinity and foreign to goodness. This work He ordains also for you, namely to cast out hatred and abolish war, to exterminate envy and banish strife, to take away hypocrisy and extinguish from within resentment of injuries smoldering in the heart. Instead, you ought to introduce whatever is contrary to the things that have been removed. -Gregory of Nyssa




Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down. -Oscar Romero


You cannot demand military service of Christians any more than you can of priests. We do not go forth as soldiers. - Origen


Love is freedom:



Anarchy is not chaos, but order with out control. -David Layson


That they may now understand that this is a new kind of warfare and not the usual custom of joining in battle, when He sent them with nothing He said: And so, marching on, show forth the meekness of lambs, although you are to go to wolves… for so will I best show my power, when the wolves are conquered by the lambs… For certainly it is a greater work and much more marvelous to change the minds of opponents and to bring about a change of soul than to kill them… We ought to be ashamed, therefore, who act far differently when as wolves we rush upon our adversaries. For as long as we are lambs we conquer; even when a thousand wolves stand about, we overcome and are victors. But if we act like wolves we are conquered, for then the aid of the Good Shepherd departs from us, for He does not foster wolves but sheep. - John Chrysostom


Alpha/Omega Anarchy



I gave food to the poor and they called me a saint; I asked why the poor have no food and they called me a communist. -Dom Helder Camara
Luke's comment: Or maybe today they would call you a socialist.


The cross-life of Jesus undermined all social orders based on power and self-interest.
-Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline)

A Parable by Philip Harrison

As "borrowed" from my friend in Long Beach, Nate Wigfield. Read his blog!


The other day I had a dream. I dreamed I arrived at the gates of heaven, heavy-shut, pure oak, beveled and crafted, glinting sharp in the sunlight. St. Peter stood to greet me; the big man wore brown, smile set deep against his ruddy cheeks.

"You're here," he said.

"I am," I said.

"Great to see you - been expecting you," he smiled. "Come on in."

He pushed gently against the huge door; it swung silently, creakless. I took a couple of steps forward until, at the threshold, one more step up and in, I realized I wasn't alone. My friends had joined me, but they hovered behind, silently, looking on. None spoke. I realized only I could speak. I looked at them; some were Christians, some Hindus, some Buddhists, some Muslims, some Jews, some atheists. Some God knows what. I stopped, paused. A hesitant St. Peter looked at me, patiently, expectantly.

"What about these guys?" I asked him. "My friends. Can they come?"

"Well, Phil," he replied, soft in the still air, "you know the rules. I'm sorry, but that's the way things are. Only the right ones."

I looked at him. He seemed genuinely pained by his answer. I stood, considering. What should I do? I thought about my reference points, and thought about Jesus, and the bastard, the outsider, the unacceptable, the drunkard, the fool, the heretic, the criminal, and I knew exactly where I belonged.

"I'll just stay here then too," I said, taking my one foot out of heaven. And I'll tell you, I'd swear I saw something like a grin break across St. Peter's face, and a voice from inside whispered, "At last."

from Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins