Great deep sigh

I FINISHED my term at seminary!

What a breath of exhale today. I have all summer with no class. There is plenty to do. A book proposal, catching up on all the housework, and project pushed aside, design clients, but no academic and reading datelines. That hangs over one's head. So, the great deep sigh of relief is so nice today. The colors are brighter, the sky is clear, and the rain has washed the debris away to a fresher day.


AHHHhhh

Describer and reconciler

I don't think we have to go around convincing people we are right and they are wrong. Even if we really truly feel this is so. I don't think we have to act like it's a battle, even if a really is one. The fact is, if a it is a battle, it is one were it is the strangest kind. It is one were we hope to never hurt our "enemy" (not our enemy at all.) We hope they come and join us. It is Red Rover. Have you played Red Rover?

I think rather than preach, I will describe. I will vision-cast. I will see the future better. I will see it better, because in this Light and with this Love, it is better. From here, the view looks really great. I can see from the mountain. I can see the distant shore. I will describe the land, and the hope, and the Master, and his tender hands, and the way he holds my hands in his.

The points and the counter-points drone on in long debates, but the descriptions of the beautiful Eastern lands, make the eyes shine, the skin flush, and the breath quicken. It's not that the facts aren't important, but it is the faith lived out, seen in community, touched into the life of the truth thirsty, that makes any bit of real difference. We must, as reconcilers, be matching the Reality of the Living Water within, with the parched earth of the hurting world (our neighbors) nearest us.

Orientation to the Divine

"Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of the imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose--and of this gathered up in adoration most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy of that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin." -William Temple

Answering a question --

A question from Cole -

Cole asks: "Lisa, I go to college with friends and classmates that think Christianity is arrogant because it makes an exclusive claim on truth. Any ideas how I share Jesus with them when they are sure reject me for this reason?"

Hi Cole! Thanks for writing. First it's important to realize that the idea of neutral ground is a myth. Everyone believes their ideas about reality, or truth, are not false ideas, or they wouldn't believe them. If they are willing to say someone else's ideas are arrogant, that means they are claiming a superior way themselves. They believe in a preferable path, and this is arrogant too. Everyone does the same sort of thing. Kindly pointing out that we all have a belief preference may help to level out the playing field a little when you are trying to state what your position is. It's okay to have an opinion. They will (probably) realize this.

What sharing your faith (Christian apologetics) boils down to is something more than just preaching and defending the Good News. Humans are in rebellion against God in their hearts. The bible points this out in the narrative story of God's interaction with people. Many thirst for something missing --which is the missing reconciliation with God. They long for peace, but also many are in opposition to God. And some (basically) hate him. We have to know this when we talk to people who don't believe. Spiritually it boils down to submission, doing things God's way....for you and for those opposed to God. Submission is never easy-- and not very cool in a society that prizes freedom, independence, and choice. Paradoxically, it is God's authority that brings comfort, clarity, and relief.

I want to encourage you to really love your friends who believe and those who don't. Bit by bit, you can introduce a worldview to them that includes God as the centerpiece. Some may reject you, (they killed Jesus after all) but others may see that your centered life and reality makes sense and is real, and not just for you. It's a blessing to see your love for Jesus, Cole.

God, Authority, the Bible--all the big stuff

For Christianity, The Bible makes claims about God. The Bible is both human written and just as much, a book made by God. It is not that the claims are true just because the Bible says so, I think, but because they are true the Bible says them. The Bible is so powerful because it says so much about God, but it does so in a very objective way. Yes, we may see it through our experiences, and people may misinterpret it, but it has authority, not for what it is, but for who is in it and behind it. Without it and therefore God, as a backbone of our reality as we submit to a Creator God, Christianity is mainly reduced to something sort of trite. Maybe it is then more or less about culture, or being good, or experience, or tradition. These aren't very compelling forces for coming under Lordship, and they have little to do with what changed the world in the first century A.D. For believers in Jesus of the Bible, the message of Jesus, is a message of belief and reconciliation with God. It is a message of love, and devotion to God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we concede on these points, then the fuel is spent. We have something rather empty.

Sometimes we like to have our reference point be ourselves, like our choices, and authority begin through perspective, which is really an impossible starting point. The lure and promise of modernity (we are still living in the gasps of it after all) was really the autonomous human--apart from God--saved by reason. Life then is choices, human directed, not God directed. In large part, modernity won the day. Christianity tried to meet it on its terms, and forgot about starting with God as authority.

The beauty of Theology sometimes missed by point-by-point systematics (Christianity's attempt at heading off modernity) is the narrative type which the CREATION-FALL-REDEMPTION-CONSUMMATION story that runs through the scriptures, like a stream.

This is another glorious thing about the Bible--Theology... and YES--experience, as we take in God through the story he tells us through it.

the flu and talks with God

It's amazing how the flu can cloud your head and you forget what wellness felt like once.

I thought I had run a head of the flu this year, barely escaped it, and then it caught me by the tip of my toe and felled me.

I don't suppose sleep is so sweet until that first good rest on the night we are well. I have been contemplating rest and what that means. . . in every sense. Mind... body . . .soul . . .(spirit) There is a giving up to do for it.

We forget about that. We want to demand for rest. Originally we come to the table, with two fists, in a kind of picket, with grievances. We barter. We deserve it. Then we beg. Finally we give in. Then we get it after-all.

I suppose I got sick in order to rest. I just didn't know it. I sleep and sleep. I have to. But my mind has to slow down too, and my expectations.

I think God is saying, "What are you thinking? Have you been trying to out do me?"

And I'm saying, " I guess I have..."

and he's just laughing... not in a mean way... just laughing because he knows this is my schtick. Just wave of the hand, and a chuckle that goes along with that kind of laugh, until I come to my senses. We're just walking. Just walking.

He says, "I'm in no hurry with you.'

And I'm saying... "I'm beginning to figure that out."

And He says, like he's got all day, "Okay, let's go."

So I get up, pick up my stuff to get ready, and he says,

"No, just leave that. . ."

Blessed

Blessed is the word coming out in much of my "lectio" readings. How I may be blessed, that God wants this for me, or how it tend to elude me... I am blessed. My God has made me thus. It is when I live in this and abide in this I see myself as such.