the Gospel

I believe this is from Nooma 015 | You. This is what we are made, and saved, for.

how i get inspired

some cool art found on ShareSomeCandy, starting with my all-time favorite.

a million miles

Donald Miller's new book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" is coming out soon, and he's posted the first 3 chapters of it online to give a taste and get some feedback. I highly enjoy reading his books so if you've never read anything of his you are in for a nice surprise. Don said in his blog that this book starts a little slow, so that's why you get to read 3 chapters instead of just one sample chapter.

The book is based around some ideas he learned at a writer's conference- that good stories need conflict and difficulty and pain to be enjoyable. Think of your favorite adventure story, one that makes you feel alive and excited, even though you are only observing from a distance. It's probably full of more hardship and loss than most of us have ever imagined in our life. But it's also full of more hope and excitement and triumph than most of us think could really ever happen.

Our lives are usually geared to be as smooth and comforting as possible, and our biggest dreams are often of more stuff that is easily attained. We have no conflict or adventure, and we are bored to death. Maybe even literally.

A note from the beginning of the book:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you probably wouldn't cry at the end of the movie when he drove off the lot testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn't tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on and sit in a chair to think about what you'd seen. The truth is you wouldn't even remember that movie a week later, except to feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who got a Volvo.

But we spend years living those kinds of stories and expect life to feel meaningful. Maybe that's why we go to so many movies, because our real lives don't feel meaningful anymore.

I know a lot of us are in a place of reassessing our lives, so maybe this will be encouraging to you. I want to get to a place where I am free to follow the dreams God puts in my heart, but I feel stuck because of the bills and responsibilities I have. That's the reason why I am selling my house (and pretty much all my furniture!), and why I downgraded my car a couple years ago, and why I'm trying to stop spending so much money on entertainment. I want to simplify, to need less money, and hopefully then to be able to work less and have more time to invest in the areas I'm really interested in. It's crazy because I don't know how to make money in any of these pursuits, but I'm trying to trust God with that. I think Jesus was serious when he said not to worry about food or clothing or shelter, and I want to start trusting him for even those basic things.

The hard thing about music and books and movies is that sometimes they inspire us to live in new ways, and other times they suck all the creative juices right out of us. Sometimes they take us away to another world and help us imagine how our world could be different too. Sometimes they just help us escape our own pain and fears for long enough to forget the anguish we feel deep inside.

But what if we could live in such a way that we could let out those stories etched deep in our hearts? It's hard for me to believe that those feeble, disjointed dreams rattling in my head are worth the effort it would take to discover if there is anything to them. But what if the whole point of life is not even actually accomplishing something useful or beautiful, but instead just enjoying the story as it plays out?

Free Eugene Peterson Audio Book

Hey, I just got an email about this! Download an audio book version of Eugene Peterson's "Christ Plays in Ten-Thousand Places" for free. I love The Message and have heard a lot of wonderful things about Peterson's other books, including this one. Give it a listen. ChristianAudio.com also has a lot of other quality audio books from some of my favorite authors, which might be a great option for those of you who don't have a lot of time to read or don't enjoy it. Plus, they have some sweet free lectures and interviews.

http://christianaudio.com/free_download.php

This concludes today's infomercial.

re-learning old practices

For 3 years I lived according to a certain routine that brought me closer to God than I had ever been before. It was such a formative and beautiful time in my life even though it consisted of long days going in multiple directions, lots of emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual stretching, and intense practice of the disciplines. But somehow over time I began to weaken. The things that had given so much life now seemed to suck me dry.

I have gone through a process for several years where nearly everything in my life has been shaken and torn down. My beliefs, my dreams, my actions, my worldview, my identity. It has been the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. Often I thought I was dying. Now I'm certain that I was. I didn't understand it at the time, but now I see that I had accidentally built all of these good practices and beliefs over the top of insecurity and fear. Instead of bringing life and healing to the broken places of my life, I tried to cover up and ignore the painful things. I was trying to earn love instead of receiving it with grace. God had to tear everything to the ground so he could fix my cracked foundation. I had to become a failure in my own eyes in order to really accept that God loved me anyway- even when I had nothing to offer.

This last year has been a time of rebuilding, but I have really struggled with implementing the old practices I had learned. I have been extremely hesitant to enter back into anything that looks like what I did during my furnace years- prayer, reading Scripture, passionate worship, and spiritual disciplines. I don't want to fall back into the old patterns again. Even though I know these practices are essential, I haven't re-learned how to join these spiritual practices with the other aspects of my life in a that supplements my whole life in a healthy way. The only way I knew how to pray or worship or lead was an channeled around an attempt to ignore or hide the brokenness in my heart.

I've been trying to learn, and it has been very up and down. This year I've been trying to take time 3x a day to pray using a Celtic Daily Prayer book. It has been so helpful because most days I don't have my own words to pray. I have needed to read the prayers of fellow Christians from hundreds of years ago, and I've found them to so often resonate with my heart. But even then there have been many days I just haven't wanted to even try that much. I have discovered that on the days I feel good I don't take the time to pray. And often on the days I'm most hurting I will avoid any time with God even though I knew that I needed him to do something.

This morning I realized a few things. First, that I've been subtly thinking of God like a doctor or counselor. I only go to him when I have something wrong. I only share my thoughts so he will tell me what's wrong and fix them. I am still living in a reactionary way, looking for a quick answer to get me better so I can keep running along and being 'normal'. I think I understood this on some level, which is why I would avoid God when I was really struggling. I knew God is more than medication and didn't want to treat him like that.

The odd thing is that I go to my parents when I am hurt physically or emotionally. I talk to them about what is happening, but I don't think of them as a doctor or counselor. I have a deeper relationship with them than just 'fixing' me. I just don't know how to really walk with God like a parent, even though the Bible is full or fatherly and motherly descriptions of God.

The other little thing that came to mind is that the times I set aside for focused prayer are not supposed to be about being more prayerful or spiritual or obedient. I want to learn to pray and worship all day in everything I do, not just at 3 set times during the day, and I found myself dreading those prayer times because I didn't want to get back into the habit of believing that certain times or places or things are more 'spiritual' or 'godly' than others. But these times can be a way of setting my direction for the day, of choosing how I want to live this day. When I am driving on the freeway, I only rarely need to turn the steering wheel but I am driving the entire time. On some trips I might go for hours straight ahead, but other times I will need to constantly be turning corners or avoiding other cars. So maybe I can learn to be aware of where I currently am in my life, and adopt a lifestyle of prayer that is dynamic to that. It's always good to set a direction when you begin a journey, and you will need to change your course throughout, but whether you are turning or going straight ahead or even stopped on the side of the road for a break, it is still all part of the same journey.

I know these aren't really new ideas to most of you, but I wanted to process them and record what I'm learning so they didn't slip away. This has become a little more real to me today and I wanted to share it with my friends.

mewithoutYou (again)

I just love this band. Their new cd (it’s all crazy ! it’s all false ! it’s all a dream ! it’s alright) comes out at the end of May, but it got leaked early and is all over the internet, including on youtube. It's definitely a lot different from their style on previous albums, and could even be described as 'hippie', as my friend Ryan called it in disappointment! Several of the songs are from the perspectives of animals, insects, or vegetables, which truthfully isn't TOO big of a departure for mewithoutYou anyway... At the same time, despite the apparent disconnect from "reality", the songs ask such insightful questions that I can't help asking myself "Why have I never thought of that before?" You have to listen to this amazing song/allegory/parable, called 'The King Beetle on the Coconut Estate'! Yep, talking insects and fruits...


view lyrics in pop-up window


Leave your thoughts in the comment section. I'd like to hear what you think the song is trying to convey and what points you think the band is trying to make.

And also check out this pretty cool interview with Aaron, the vocalist and writer of the band.

questions from "The Orthodox Heretic"

Here are some of the questions that I draw from the story of "The Orthodox Heretic".

The first point the town leaders bring up is that they need to return the man to the government he escaped from so that the rest of the town is not endangered. They know that this man will be punished by the authorities, but they believe that it has to be done or the entire town will suffer. In their view, the good of many outweighs the good of one. The caretaker, however, is more concerned with the needs of this man he has rescued. His view is not a selfish one of "my good is higher than the good of all", but is completely unselfish in that he is willing to suffer to protect this criminal. He believes that as a community, the needs of the most vulnerable should be the concern of the entire town, and that nobody in the town is okay if even one member is not okay.

"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few" is a very dominant philosophy in the US, especially when it comes to the systems our country is built on. But these assumptions are currently under heavy discussion, from government to business to military to foreign aid. How does the circumstance of the few affect the many? What are alternative understandings of the relationship between the many and the few? As Christians, how do we find our position impacted by the Bible, both specific instances but also the larger story arcs of Scripture?

Another question that I find in this parable has to do with "truth" and "love". The town leaders seem to have political truth, Scriptural truth, and even God's audible voice on their side, but the caretaker appears to be completely motivated by love for this stranger, even at the cost of his own life. Now I'm not trying to create an artificial division between truth and love, but I can sure think of times where I've been stuck in a position similar to this. Is it better to have truth or love? Is there ever a time they can or should put placed "against" each other? Is it possible that both positions in this story (and in some of our daily stories) are "right"?

Finally, I think it asks the question of how to respond to people with completely different world views, especially when those world views can be backed up with the Bible. I am increasingly aware that anybody can make the Bible say anything they want, and I'm sure most of us have seen plenty of evidence for that too. Many people leave behind Scripture at this point, because they think it doesn't have anything solid or true to say and can too easily be abused or manipulated, or they cling to one interpretation of Scripture at the exclusion of any differing understanding. Take a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as "liberalism vs. fundamentalism" to prove my point. Both of these ideologies tend to be reactionary, angry, and violent (not physically (at least in the USA), but emotionally and verbally). I don't think either approach is sufficient or helpful for moving forward, and this parable forces us to address this roadblock head on.

The parable gives value to, and even supports, BOTH viewpoints, while leaving us with the awkward feeling that both parties are simultaneously right AND wrong. We can see the reason behind why each group acts the way they do, while not being completely satisfied with either group's choices. And this dis-satisfaction leaves us humble, looking for another way, open to new ideas from God, because we realize that even with the best theology and best actions, we desperately need God's help to understand and obey him.