Belief

Most of us have been raised to be mental Christians.  We've started early on in our lives to be "educated" about our faith.  Sunday School.  Sermons.  Vacation Bible School.  In fact, the innocent, childhood beliefs we had have been intellectualized right out of our hearts.

It's sad.  We've replaced the wonderment and awe of a child with facts and figures about the Kingdom.  One time I was at a meeting of Mennonite clergy.  One of the ministers bored us all with Bible trivia.  How many donkeys did King David have?  What Honda did the disciples drive around in?  It was boring and made light of a walk of faith with the Father.  Sad.  Very sad.

So what's wrong with having an intellectual faith in the Father?  For one thing, it turns the Bible into a book of facts and figures and not a living Word.  When we try to dissect the Gospel as just another book we kill the life of it.  The Scriptures are meant to be a living letter from the Father to us, not to be the end of His communication with us, but to train us by experience how to hear the Father speak to us.

We lose the living Spirit of the Bible when we try to limit what God is going to say to us to just the specific examples of how He has spoken in the past.  We are to be having a vibrant, daily conversation with the Father with whom we have a relationship.  Sounds more like the conversations of a child than the words of a theologian.

When we have an intellectual faith it looks just like what we did when I attended seminary.  We, Pat, the kids and I, were dependent on others to send us gifts to meet our daily expenses.  I mustered up my best intellectual faith, posted a note on the refrigerator that "God is our source" ...and worried every time bills were due.  My faith was not in a loving, immovable Father but in the "fact" that He would support us.  My belief was in the words and not in the Word.  My worry demonstrated what was really in my heart about my Father.

True belief is not what we can mentally spout off.  It's what we act on in our daily lives.  Do I believe that God is my source?  If I really know Him in that way then I can live in peace when financial catastrophes loom on the horizon.  I trust that He will show up and walk with me through the difficulty.  I don't rush out and sell everything I have and expect the world to end.  I don't go borrow more money to see me through.  I don't go crying the blues to those around me looking for sympathy...and donations to my plight.

Does the Father want me to lose my house?  Probably not.  But He may want me to downsize...or relocate...or simplify my life?  Maybe.  Why?  Because He loves me and wants the best for me.  And what I think is the best might not be the best.

What we truly believe is demonstrated in our actions...not our words.  I have a peace in my heart about what the Father believes about me.  I trust Him.  I know His heart toward me is good.  I know He wants the best for my life.  And I can wait until He unfolds that will in my life, living each day in peace and tranquility.

Am I the model of faith?  No, to the contrary.  I face battles of my belief.  I am attacked by an enemy who wants to remind me of how I used to think and believe before I saw the Father show up in His loving glory.  I have to allow my Spirit to speak to my heart and not my head.  I must allow my actions to be based on my experience with the Father.  I learn more about His trustworthiness as I trust Him on a daily basis.  I don't need to go around spouting off what I know about the Father.  I just live it and let my actions speak for my belief.

Ah, yes.  I am ready, as Paul said, to give a report about why I believe what I do.  I can quickly tell you how good my Father has been to me.  I see Him daily showing me how He loves me.

I pray for you today that you will know the depth and width and height of the love of God for you...in your heart and not in your head.  Watch for it!

Trying Harder

I had a check in my spirit yesterday right after I posted about "Now what?"  It was confirmed by a comment Nissa, my daughter, made about my post.

So many of us have been raised with the idea that our spirituality is up to us.  We have to make the effort to make God want to speak to us, to be with us and to teach us.  What we end up doing is carrying our spirituality on our own shoulders.  I once had a person tell me about someone I was trying to have a relationship with that I can't carry both sides of the relationship.

The same is true with God only he doesn't require me to carry both sides.  It's just that most of us have gotten used to being both sides of a friendship and we don't know how to let God love us without doing so much.

My parents raised me with the best of the tools they had at that point.  They ingrained me with the idea that I had to act so that everyone liked me.  Besides watering down who I am, it led me to collapse emotionally.  I was trying to please two sides of a congregational fence as their pastor and I got caught in the barbed wire.

I don't know when I came to the realization that God didn't require me to try harder.  I suppose I learned a lot about that while I was working with Theotherapy.  I remember once driving along listening to oldies from the 70's (not meditating on God's goodness) when he spoke and told me to turn off the radio.  He had something he wanted to tell me.

At that time in my life I had quit reading the scriptures, stopped praying (at least on Wed nights, before meals, etc) and was trying to give up all the religious things I had learned.  I discovered that the Father still wanted to communicate to me and didn't require that I try harder.

So many people that we worked with in receiving emotional healing had had the following formula crammed down their throats by their churches in response to their brokenness..."Just pray more, come to church more, tithe more, serve more...(try harder to be good).  They were worn out and had given up on the church.  They had also given up that they were ever going to measure up to God's (man's version of it) standard.

It was only when they began to experience the unconditional love of God that they realized that he is a friend who initiates friendship.  He wants to be in a relationship with us and he is pursuing us.  He wants us to stop trying harder...and just yield to his promptings.

Whew!  Was that ever a load off my shoulders when I realized it wasn't up to me to initiate it.  All I had to do was respond to his love.  His Holy Spirit was going to lead me into all truth.  He was going to deepen my spirituality as I spent time with him in whatever context I found myself.  He was going to lead me to repentance if I'd quit trying so hard on my own to be righteous.

Funny, the scriptures remind us that all our righteousness is as filthy rags...not just dirty ones, or soiled ones...but filthy.  We don't have enough Tide or Clorox to get our righteousness up to par.

As I walk out my daily relationship with the Father the interactions I have with others come out of the abundance of that love between us.  I don't have to try to be nice to others.  I just show the love I have been shown.  I don't have to remember to be polite.  I am just polite because I was loved first and now I can love.

I am enjoying my walk with God, my Father, my friend, my Savior as I yield to his loving attention to me.  I am enjoying the improvement in my relationships with others as I bask in His love.  I have given up trying harder.  It just wears me out.

Now what?

Yesterday my two good Mennonite neighbors mowed their lawns so I was assured that it was okay to do the same to my lawn on Easter Monday.  Don't ask me where Easter Monday came.  I think it's an Amish holiday...another way to get a day off.  Maybe it celebrates that Jesus rested after being resurrected.  I checked to make sure there weren't any other restrictions on Easter Tuesday.

I've been waiting for Easter since Christmas.  It was then that I had a conversation with a devout Hindu, the father of a friend of Ben and Rose's.  He mentioned in the course of our conversation that he had seen a sermon title on the sign of a Lutheran church somewhere..."He is Risen...now what?"

Easter has so many memories attached with it.  Easter egg hunts.  New shoes and an outfit for church.  The energy of spring after a long winter.  Sunrise services.  Breakfasts at church so we didn't have to go back home between the services.  But now that it is over, what do we look forward to?  Or as I entitled this blog...now what?

What does it mean to be a Christian post Easter?  How does it change my life that Christ, my redeemer, has risen from the dead?  For one thing, no other religion claims their founder rose from the dead.  For that matter I'm not sure any other claims to have come from the Father to show us how to live a redeemed life in relationship with God and then returned.  It's more than my human brain can comprehend (and I would suppose anyone else's) to understand how God can be three in one.  I don't think we're supposed to figure that one out.

So will people know that I serve a risen Savior because I have a new pair of shoes?  Or I can show them the remnants of the candy I got (with the green artificial grass all over the house)?  Or have the nicest lawn with my mulch already in place?

It's got to be more than that.  In fact those other indicators don't even need to be repeated next year.  I serve a risen savior and I have an intimate relationship with the Father because of Jesus.  And it changes my life today...and every day since Easter.  In fact, I downplay Easter now because I don't want people to get the impression that that is the only time I serve Jesus.

I serve him in the way I treat my neighbors.  I serve him in the way I respond to aggressive drivers...first by not being one.  I serve him by loving the unlovely.  I have compassion on those who are angry and spiteful.  I treat my wife with respect.  I serve those around me.  I live a lifestyle that is different because I serve a risen Savior.  Not because I want to be in tune to the green focus our culture has now.  Or give away money so I can get my name on buildings all over LA like the guy I saw on 60 Minutes a few days ago.

It's time for us to live as people of a risen Savior...every day of the year and not just on Easter.  It's time for us to have an intimate relationship with him so that we can love as he loved us.  It's time for us to repent of the daily ways that we don't reflect the Savior when the Holy Spirit prompts us.  It's time for us to change our lives and join in the resurrection of our Redeemer.

Forget the dandelions in your yard and focus on removing the dandelions in your spirit.  Forget getting a new pair of shoes and get a new heart by giving your life to him.  Forget getting up so early for one morning of the year just so you can have coffee and donuts at church with your friends.  Join others who need fellowship and need to know the risen Savior at the local Dunkin Donuts next Sunday morning.  Love the checkout clerk at your local grocery store.  Show compassion to the attendant at the convenience store.  Come in the opposite spirit of the aggressive driver and bless them in their stress.

Now what?  We've got a whole year ahead of us, 365 days to live like people who have been resurrected.

Learning

I've had conversations with a couple of parents of kids in schools these days.  One of them was my daughter this morning.  We sat around solving the worlds problems...and still didn't get her lawn mowed.  By the way, my neighbor has faithfully mowed his twice now, taking off at least a quarter of an inch each time.

I'm not the first to say that one of the tragedies of school these days is the education toward taking a test.  Unfortunately, some PhD in Washington decided that we needed to aim everything toward teaching kids how to take a test and get the answers right.  That's not learning...by a long shot.

First, that encourages cheating (and I'm not justifying that by any means).  If you are evaluated by the answers then you do whatever it takes to get the right answers.  That may include using your iphone or ipod or other electronic device to store the answers.  It may mean the administrators of the tests will need to go back over the scores and change some of the answers as they are accused of doing in the DC school district.

That is not learning.  Let me say it now.  The greatest tragedy of our current education system is that we aren't teaching kids the joy of learning.  It takes a motivated, inspired, enthusiastic teacher to motivate children to learn.  They need to see the personal application to the subject matter they are being exposed to.  What is the joy of learning?  It is the thrill of grasping new information and concepts that impact your life today.

I first learned that when I was 34 in a seminary class on Church History taught by Gerald Brunk.  He showed how when Constantine marched his troops through the river to "baptize" them all to being Christians it transfers to experiences of person today who think that getting baptized is all there is to Christianity.  It might be all there is to Christianity but it isn't all there is to being a follower of Christ.  Ah, but I am chasing a rabbit.

I am thankful that over the years I have been inspired by many to the joys of learning.  They included teachers, others who ate, slept and lived their fields of study and parents.  Let's talk about them.  Parents.  So Mark Zuckeburg gave $100M to the Newark city schools of which $99M still sits in the bank while they argue how to spend it!  That $100M will not touch the parents of those kids who need to be supporting the learning process.

If parents aren't as excited about the process of learning they aren't going to be able to help their children focus on the facts while Facebook and Twitter call them.  I'm reminded of how Ben Carson's mom restricted his TV time so that he would be inspired to learn and not just vegetate in front of the boob tube.  He became the premier child neurological surgeon of our time.

I was reminded of the movie Finding Forrester about the young man who was inspired to learn by one of the neighbors in his inner city community and the movie I can't remember the name of right now where the teacher inspired her kids to write.  They were "low achievers" who were inspired to learn by a motivated teacher.

So we need capable teachers, interested parents and finally, an involved community.  I'm not touched directly by the school system in my area.  I don't have kids attending any more but my grandkids and the future young men and women who are being "educated" there are going to run the world I'll retire in.  So I better get involved or I will taste the fruits of my disengagement.

On a closing note, Pat and I were talking the other day about how she has finally gotten inspired to read books.  I have enjoyed reading for many years but she didn't have the encouragement to discover the joys of reading.  She had to wait until she was 55 or so before she discovered the fun of learning from books.  That seems like a tragedy to wait that long to discover the joy of learning.  But we're educating another generation with that same lack as we speak. 

What are we going to do about it?

Hope

Anyone who has cooked Italian food will know that it's always better the second time around.  That's because the spices have a chance to permeate the whole dish.  I learned a trick from an Italian cook once when he was doing lasagna...take it out of the oven for about 30 minutes and it fakes out the spices and allows them to saturate the dish.

Hope is like that.  It takes some time to simmer.  Hope is not the kind of thing that you get in a flash of Holy Spirit power but is rather built over time.  It grows when you see the Father show up to bring you his resources.  He doesn't always come right away, in fact, I have a friend who says that God is always late...at least based on his timetable!

Unfortunately, we put our hope in the wrong things...a job, a big bank account, dependable cars, friends.  All of those things can go away in just the flash of an instant.  But if that's all we've ever trusted in then that's what our hope is built on.  And it will fail.

Hope is knowing that the Father will show up.  In order to learn that you have to put your hope in Him and not in other things.  That's scary.  That's because we have interpreted the Father's hope based on hope in things or people.  They've been kind of our security in case God doesn't show up.  That's why so often when people and things let us down we interpret the Father's heart as being just as fickle.  We blame Him for the failure of those we have put our hope in.

It's a hard habit to break and one that takes lots of God's grace to master.  By His grace He pulls the rug out from under us, takes away the things we rely on and leaves us with only one hope...Him.

Growing in a mature hope is like Italian food.  The circumstances have to simmer some.  They have to permeate the dish.  They need time to make the best meal.

As I age I see that God is a lot slower about some things than I would like Him to be.  He doesn't like to microwave my hope but rather to let it saturate slowly over time.  When I left my job last September the colleagues who let me go said that I would have a job quickly.  They were sure.  That wasn't based on a revelation from God but just nice words to leave me with.

It hasn't happened that way.  I am trusting in the hope that the Father knows my gifts.  He knows my needs.  He knows where he wants to put me.  And He is letting me enjoy the time off.  I have read 40 books since the beginning of the year.  I finished some remodeling projects (and started others) that I have dreamed of doing for 3 years.  I used to lament that I wished I had a week to work in my yard, a week to work in my shop and a week to work on something else.  I've had them.  Gifts from my Father who has instilled in me hope over the last 6 months.

My hope isn't built on the economic stimulus package put together by the President and Congress.  It isn't set on a broad circle of friends that I sit with every week.  It can't be measured in how much money I have in the bank.  It can only be valued by the relationship that I have with my Father.  My hope is built on nothing less.

Hormones

Pat and I have been doing a lot of reading lately...a way to escape reality I guess.  We've read a lot of books by Jodi Picoult, Nicholas Sparks and one by Belva Plain.  I would have to say that so far my favorite has been Nicholas Sparks.  We both like the NC settings of his novels and he is a master story-teller.

I suppose these novels are to reflect the culture in some way.  In all of these books it is common for the characters to have hormonal sex.  By that I mean, they have an attraction, hop in bed and have passionate sex.  The books don't describe this in detail but the theme is the same.  Later the characters go about getting to know each other and see if they are compatible...after many times in bed.

This reminds me of another book I read several years ago--Bonding, by Dr Donald Joy.  In his book he takes a theory of animal bonding for those species that bond with one mate for life and extrapolates it into a theory of bonding for human beings.  I like the book.  In fact, it's one of the ones I have kept on my shelf after discarding many others.

In our world today, the norm is to try on the relationship, meaning living together.  I may be old-fashioned but there is still something that sticks in my heart about the need to decide that you are committed to someone before you leap into bed.  Part of Joy's premise is that if you have the ultimate bonding experience, sex, without the rest of the issues being worked out...the rest of the issues never get worked out.  You never bond.  You never share values, dreams and other parts of your heart.  The physical aspect of sex takes over.  It is literally physically and chemically more exciting to have sex than to talk to each other about life.

Bonding takes time.  It takes time to share activities together, decide what you like to do, talk about what is deepest in your heart and put together a relationship that won't end when the sex begins to wane.  If you are sexually active and responding to the hormones every time you get around that attractive person, you have time for sex but not time to bond.  And the bonding is what lasts 40 to 50 to 60 years into a relationship.

I'm not doing Joy's book justice.  I'll have to write about it more in depth some other time.

Now that Pat and I are older (and I'll be frank) we aren't hopping into bed every night, every afternoon, every morning...you get the picture.  We are bonded on many more things.  One of the more unusual ones we are enjoying together now is reading books.  I've always enjoyed that but Pat hasn't.  Now it is more common for us to go to bed and read together.  We're trading books, talking about what we read and enjoying a few passionate moments along the way.

If our relationship was just founded on physical sex we would be drifting apart like many couples do as women go through menopause and men look for their second childhood in cars, sports, etc.  One of the things Pat and I still enjoy doing is traveling where we have hours to talk uninterrupted, sharing our thoughts and continuing to bond with each other into our twilight years.

Look for it soon.  I'll write about what it really takes to bond with someone so that its not just about passionate, hormonal sex but about values and shared activities that will last for a life time.

The Simple Way

I've been kinda lax in writing recently.  I guess every writer goes through a stage like that every once in a while.

Some friends of ours recommended a book to me several months ago.  It was The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.  I was taken by the book and the things Shane and his community of believers were doing in Philadelphia.  I was afraid to write too much about what I was challenged by because I wasn't living it.  I mean, Shane has taken the Gospel to one of the roughest neighborhoods of Philly.

Shane is a radical, raised in eastern TN (I already liked him because of that).  He felt called to those without an advocate in the poor section of Philly.  He had attended Eastern University and been impacted by other radicals like Tony Campollo.  He's also gotten his fingers into the Mennonite community because of their theology (but not necessarily their practice) of a simple life.

At Thanksgiving I talked to Ben about Shane and his work and he encouraged me to look them up and go spend some time hanging out with them.  I found the website and began a correspondence with Grace Young and her husband Michael.  They hail from Lancaster County but if I blink my eyes they remind me a lot of the 70's hippies I saw in my youth.

I finally made my first trip down there a few weeks ago and again this week to help them out with some building projects.  They own 9 properties in the Kensington neighborhood of north Philly.  It's street after street of small 3 BR, 1 Bath row houses.  Very tight streets and several burned out or boarded up houses on each street.  I helped Michael with a few plumbing issues the first time but didn't get much time to chat.

This week when I went down to work I was joined by a father and his two college aged kids from Cincinnati.  They came to check out the ministry and volunteer.  The son had read Shane's book and passed it on to his Dad.  They helped me remove some walls in the row house serving as the office of The Simple Way to open up the space and make it more useable for their meetings.  There's a lot more I'd like to do there but I need to find the time.

What is The Simple Way doing?  They are living right among those they are seeking to serve and love.  They have bought up several properties to make available for rentals.  They take in community service workers that have been referred by the courts.  They clean up their street, hang out with the kids, provide food for families that need some help, give clothes to the poor, hand out school supplies at the beginning of the school year to the local kids. 

Yesterday, there was also a group of Jewish kids who volunteered to help clean up the lot where a factory once stood that had burned out several years ago.  In the fire event one of TSW houses was destroyed.  That lot is now converted to green space for others to enjoy.  The lot being cleaned up is owned by the city and TSW is hoping to plant some stuff there to add some greenery to the neighborhood.

Before the volunteers had arrived to the vacant lot I brought over a truck load of debris from the office to be dumped in the dumpster.  As I started to throw stuff into the dumpster a fellow came running down the block yelling to me to get my attention.  He thought maybe I was using TSW's dumpster for my personal trash.  I later met the good neighbor, Manuel.  He is a card and he takes pride in what they are doing in his neighborhood.  He is a positive force in that neighborhood as well.

What do people really need?  Friends.  Ones who will love them, hang out with them and bless their lives.  I blessed the community verbally as I worked there this week.  I blessed the love of TSW group who is there putting a foot in the door of inner city Philly.  They want to impact their world.  They are living simply and loving much.

There's a part of me that could get caught up in what they are doing.  I enjoyed so much the interaction I had with people there in the neighborhood.  I got familiar with finding my way around.  I am overwhelmed by how much needs to be done in the neighborhood.  It takes way more people than I can represent by myself.  But it has to start somewhere.

Pat is having an impact in her classes at Pequea Valley High School.  I'm touching a few in Philly.  Others are impacting children in NYC.  Who are you loving today?  Is there someone you have overlooked that needs some of your attention?  Would you like to go with me to Philly some time?

Oh, by the way, I did get to meet Shane.  He's cool...because he talks with the right accent from TN (not Philly).