meditatio at the water's edge

Here are some of my thoughts from Soularize. I wrote these thoughts as the conference was unfolding...well, you'll get it.



Yesterday Doug Pagitt talked about his journey and some of the things people have taught him. Nothing too new for me there. It was good stuff, I just felt like I've been there already. I also feel a bit that he was holding back(?). I thought Soularize was supposed to be a bit shocking and pushing the edges and all--and in many ways it is--but I am reminded that some people are just starting out on the journey beyond traditional faith experiences. It will mean that we will need to be more patient with others who are beginning their journey.

One thing that I noticed bothering me this morning was the fact of explaining what we're doing at Water's Edge. I find myself wanting to talk about practice rather than tell other people what I'm doing. It always seems like bragging or some sort of showcasing. Maybe that is just what I'm struggling with in my heart--with all my desire to be respected. Well, I would really like to get into a good conversation about spiritual transformation here.

I talked with Rick Bennett this morning as we walked here from the hotel. Rick was sharing a little on his workshop "The Cult of Cool vs. Post-consumerism." He commented that so much of what people are doing is in danger of just becoming a 'cool' version of what is already going on. That is what I felt to a degree about this morning's 'DJ led worship. It was a very noisy and busy project. Cool, yes, but not very engaging to me. I did appreciate the stations--one of which was an open art table. I did a picture of Jesus in the 'scribble' style that I have been experimenting with. It turned out prety good, but I think I ruined it by putting words on the paper: 'love is beautiful.' Yes, it is, but I should have left it with the image.

Anyway, from my talk with Rick, I was sensing that the way forward (or way out, as I put it then) will require movements toward humility, stillness, and irrelevance (in the sense of not being driven by needs or attractiveness, but by the Spirit). Humility, or an appropriate smallness, is needed for we must take our eyes off of ourselves (and stop worrying about how others think of us), and focus on others. We must gently create space for others, and listen.

Pride drives us into the many problems of hurry and propels us to say all kinds of unnecessary things--which only make us sound stupid or arrogant. I think this humility will take the form of speaking only when we are invited to speak--at least moreso than we have in the past. We're so tempted to walk around like peacocks, spreading our words like feathers to impress others. But as we become people who simply listen, our beauty will be quiet and creative. It will create beauty in others. It will help others draw near to God in ways they did not expect or even know possible. I think this humility is perhaps most necessary when dealing with people who 'do not get it'--people who have not yet struggled with the questions we are asking. There is a real temptation to have a meanness and arrogance toward our mother (the faith 'system' we come from). Like adolescents searching to find an identity apart from their parents, Our struggle comes off as mean and self-centered.

Stillness is another move that will be necessary for us. This has more to do with the frantic pace of life that we have been trained to desire. We must be comfortable with producing nothing--to simply 'be' before God. This stillness shows us that the world does not really need all our busyness. We are not really necessary. The irony is that such people who recognize their non-necessity are the most needed people among us. They teach us to depend on God and to act, not out of an anxiety to produce, but from an identity of love--loving in the name (identity) of Jesus.

Stillness gives us the perspective and ability to hear the vox Dei (the voice of God). As Dallas (Willard) said, "Silence is like the wind of Eternity blowing in your face." One of he greatest enemies of our faithfulness is in busyness. Perhaps our greatest ally then, will be stillness. Perhaps we will then know what it means to fulfill our calling to be a people of peace. Perhaps we will experience a bit of the promised rest of God. And from that rest, we can find the most helpful sort of creativity. The healing creativity of God in our hearts

Irrelevance is also necessary. Not in the sense of being 'no earthly good', but in the sense of not being driven by our need to be needed or wanted. Secretly we may desire to have others be contingent upon us--that we meet needs for them that no one else can. But we forget that we too are contingent beings. Irrelevance means, i suppose, that we direct everyone to depend on God rather than on us. We will then be Spirit directed, and not 'need' driven. From this mindset of irrelevance alone can we truly be helpful to others. It is because we grasp our own contigency that we can help others where they truly have need--the need to depend on God. (There is probably more on this idea, but I'm out of time.)

Anyway, I have been experiencing God's peace through the music of John Michael Talbot this morning. It is so helpful for calming my heart that is so prone to busyness and noise and anxiety about producing.

My centering prayer last night was "Hallowed be Thy name." It was so necessary to me as I have been secretly hoping for my name to be respected. I am content to remain in silence and irrelevance if God's name will be hallowed among the people around me.

I hope that I can find a way forward from a critical spirit. I have been able to see clearly the problems around me, but I long to be able to move forward to be able to see the creative movements necessary as well.


Thursday@8:00am--It's strange who you meet when you least expect it. Last night I found out that the previous night I was talking to some guys from Lincoln. Jeremiah and Brian. In a strange collision of worlds, Brian and I played basketball together (or against) each other in intramural basketball when I was in Seminary. Then I was reading his blog a few months ago, and then last night we talked and I found out he was a LCC (Lincoln Christian College) grad. Then he told me that the other guy he was with was none other than Brian Lowery--the son of one of my most influential professors. It was really quite serendipitous.

So we talked for a few hours over Roast beef, Mashed Potatoes, and later, a cider. It was really great to see some more Christian Church people in this conversation I was feeling quite alone in this whole thing.

Anyway, last night I was able to go to Joe Myers' workshop on Post-Evangelicalism. It was probably more significant than I understood. It's hard to get outside of the framework that one assumes to be reality. I mean to say that I understood what he was saying, but it was hard for me to see how my life would look in light of it. What I came to was that beyond evangelicalism the church will need to see its role as 1) coming alive to God, and 2) being a catalyst for 'the other' to come alive to God's presence as well. He suggested that most Christians believe that Satan is omnipresent (or else they think Satan is working on them personally), and that God is almost omnipresent. But we must reexamine the ideas we have about omnipresence (as well as a great number of ideas) so that we really understand what it means for God to be present everywhere. It will mean that we assume God to be at work in everyone's life in some way--even in the lives of people we have written off. So we will include them in our 'congregations'. It will dramatically redifine 'those who count' for us.

Joe suggested that Christians should take up an idea from MLM about seeing everyone within ten feet of you as a 'target'. Let's not take up the 'target' language, but it will be a radically helpful shift for us to consider everyone around us as someone we can help (and not in the patronising way we often 'help' people), but to simply help people, where appropriate, with their lives. He suggested that this, in some way, brings the kingdom of God into their lives. I think I agree with that because I believe God is at work already in everyone's life--they just don't always see it. So it is our job to simply demonstrate the love and compassion of God in a life of peace, love ,joy, and purity of heart, so that we may act as a catalyst for other people to come alive to God's presence and action in their life. Grace permeates this world now, and we must come alive to that reality in our lives if we are to help others come alive to it as well.

Friday night, Oct 18--Sitting in the Midway airport. As I look back on the trip, I struggle to define the immediate benefit of the conference. I suppose it is in the continued affirmation that we are not alone in our journey. I think the highlight for me was the conversations with people, and in particular, the conversations I had with Brian Lowery. I also developed a sense of connection to the Ooze as a community. The workshop with Tom & Christine Sine today was the best workshop I attended. It was good to hear people talking in such articulate ways about the things I have been trying to teach (often in not-so-articulate ways).

We strolled through the Mall of America during a few hours we had free in the afternoon. It was a complete disappointment. I was painfully aware of the incredible power that materialism has over our culture. A great ziggurat of consumerism, the Mall of America, shows me what god we really trust in. I can't temper this idea anymore. I cannot excuse my own materialism anymore (although I do sense that it is weaker than it used to be--at least in some ways). I cannot apologize to others for condemning it. I walked through that enormous temple of greed, and thought, "I never saw so much stuff I didn't want" (that is, until I saw the Apple store). How did this come to be? We can build these huge buildings for ourselves, but we can't spare $1800 to build a small cement block house for a family in southern Africa. I suppose I have been comfortably dumb about it in the past. I suppose I have been able to ignore it--and maybe I will still forget more than I remember--but this idea of injustice and apathy for the poor keeps washing ashore in my mind. One day, I will stop throwing it back out to sea.

Anyway, as I flew into Chicago, we encountered a little turbulence. Those moments force you to admit your complete helplessness to save yourself. It is a complete act of confidence in the ability of the pilot and the laws of physics. I thought about life and how fragile and precious it is.

Gotta catch my plane.