Anabaptists aren’t used to being in vogue, but the fact is, the way we practice faith has never been more relevant.  This year’s Church of the Brethren Annual Conference moderator, Shawn Flory-Replogle said it well.  “We live in the most violent, materialistic, self-centered society since the Roman Empire.  As the Church of the Brethren, we know a little something about those things.”  Indeed.

Perhaps this is why so many folks who are frustrated with the rigidity, hierarchy, individualism, and attachment to the status quo of their own religious traditions are finding inspiration in Anabaptism.  Ironically, these emerging forms of faith are experiencing real growth just as our own denomination seems paralyzed by conflict and malaise.  We needn’t be surprised that Brethren don’t know much about being in style, but we have little excuse for losing sight of how extremely relevant our practice of faith is in today’s world.  The world is deeply in need of another way of living and that’s what people who take Jesus seriously work to achieve.

The Annual Conference theme (Taking Jesus Seriously) dovetailed beautifully with that of this year’s National Youth Conference: ‘More than meets the eye.’  Our workshops, group discussions, and worship services explored the dimensions of our identity which elude a cursory glance.  The world has a million ways to sell us an identity that says I’ve ‘got it together.’   But underneath the surface, we are deeply broken.  Beneath the fashions of the day lie the insecurities and wounds which we dare not reveal.  Underneath the conspicuous display of wealth and strength lie the fears of our own weakness and worthlessness.

How refreshing it was to have insightful preachers from other traditions come to remind us of the good news of God’s grace, and the gifts of love and joy which pour forth from its discovery.  When I am most afraid for the future of our faith tradition, I will be able to remember the power of this basic message to unite our diverse body of believers, and call us all into discipleship, service, and mission.  Thank you, friends, for helping we youth and advisors get to Colorado for a week of inspiration.  I hope you’ll be infected by the same spirit which so refreshed us.

Mama’s birthday has prompted me to express my gratitude for a woman of uncommon love.  It’s not that she wasn’t without her faults.  In fact, she knew her own shortcomings very well.  She knew her own pain, but she didn’t let it rule her life.

I recently heard someone say that we all have wounds.  The question is whether they make us stronger or weaker.  Even as our culture tends to idealize personal strength, Mama knew that strength was also inter-personal.  She modeled this in her relentless pursuit of righteousness, of right-relationship with God and with others.  She was not someone to sit on her feelings or allow her conflicts with others to fester.  She wanted to make it right.

Can you think of the last time you learned someone was upset with, or disappointed in you?  How did you handle it?  I think I usually look for a way to fix it–unless I don’t sense that the other person desires to have it fixed.  Then, I get stuck.  That didn’t stop my mother.  Her faith in the power of reconciliation didn’t blind her to its obstacles.  Her faith inspired her to place a radical trust in the power of love’s intention to overcome fear, anger, and injustice.  She knew it wasn’t enough to pray for peace.  One needed to discover within, the capacity to express love, even when there was no promise of recompense.  When something wasn’t right with someone, she faced her fears and pursued the possibility of healing.

In the year and a half since her death, I’ve heard countless stories of people whose lives were shaped by my mother’s love.  I guess that is the real miracle of love.  It is weakened only when it is not shared.  The more freely it is given, the more widely it is shared, the more deeply it is expressed, the stronger it becomes.

I know what Jesus meant when he bid his disciples to build up, for themselves, treasures in heaven, the kind that could never be stolen or spoiled.  I give thanks for the way Mama’s faith was lived on earth as it is in heaven.

Sure, I believe in simple living, but actually living simply is another thing.

At our last week’s Men’s Breakfast, Jeff Keuss asked they guys to share about their relationship to ‘stuff.’  Turns out, just about everybody reported having problems dealing with their stuff.  At least I’m not alone.

As my breakfast brothers shared, I realized we all had different reasons for our conflicted relationship with things.  Two weeks ago, Kate and I bought a house.  To be sure, it has been exciting.  Our move brought us back to Seattle, 5 minutes from the church, closer to Kate’s work, and into a home of our very own.  We’ve felt exceedingly grateful, especially for the hard work of my folks who made it possible to begin with.  But not everything has been exciting.  This  move has slammed me kind of hard, and it’s forced me to reflect upon my attachment to my stuff.

Moving is not foreign to me.  In my 40 years, I’ve lived in at least 23 different homes, and in none for more than 5 years.  I marvel at the deep connections so many  have to a geographic place in their lives.  It makes me feel like a nomad.  For me, home was simply where my family was.

While my family was never attached to a single house, we were extraordinarily connected to our things.   Continue reading »

Whatever you’re doing right now, I want to ask you to NOT think of an elephant.  Feel free to think about whatever you want, just not an elephant.

As a wise man once said, ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste, or not to have at all.’  Researchers have learned some important things about the way the mind acquires, stores, and recalls information.  Notably, the mind handles information by bundling and framing it.  Where it can do so easily, the information is more easily stored and recalled.  Where information is difficult to conceptualize in this way, it is disposed of.  There is a lot of information to be known about elephants.  All of us have some notion of them.  Those who have had experiences with them have not likely forgotten them.  They are memorable creatures, even if we’re instructed to NOT think about them.

How often do you find yourself walking into a room and forgetting why you were there?  We tend to regret the information we can’t seem to recall at the right times, but disposing of information can be very helpful.  Why?  Because we are simply not capable of handling all the things which our minds can perceive.

Information overload is even more of a problem in the modern era, where it streams at us far faster than we can process.  We’ve learned to cope with the flood of information by looking for patterns.  When we hear a deep growling sound, we remember other times we’ve heard that, and soon recall the danger that sound suggests.  When we encounter a situation that confounds us, we sort through memories of similar things, and latch onto those which connect symbolically.

It turns out that words play a very important role in shaping our ability to discern patterns, and therefore, our ability to store and use ideas.  When information fits our view of the world, we tend to retain it.  Unfortunately, if conveniently, we tend to ignore and forget information that contradicts our perceptions or opinions.

Words are symbols.  They bundle and frame things as ideas.  They carry them like boats carry people over the sea.  Their contents may shift.  Their courses may drift.  They may even capsize and sink, or ground upon a rocky shore.  Not surprisingly, they sometimes disgorge their passengers and take on new ones, before setting out for entirely new destinations.

The Hebrew word Ruach is a good example.  At times it means Spirit.  Elsewhere-breath.  Sometimes wind.  It can even mean scent, or the verb, to smell.

Today, spirit can also refer to the intangible presence of a deceased person, a class of alcoholic drink, team enthusiasm, a quality of character, or to one’s mood.  We perceive the intended meaning in relation to its context.

Mars Rover 'Spirit'

'Spirit' B-2 bomber

This dynamic can get tricky for people of faith who have canonized ancient texts, formulated creeds, and spent years with the lyrics and liturgies of their traditions.  We shouldn’t be surprised that we have so much conflict over language.  It is important.  What else can come close to conveying our understanding of God, of the meaning of Jesus’ life, or the purpose of following as a disciple?  What else can so stand in the way of communicating the principles of our faith across divides of culture or world-view?

So much more can be said about the power of words to carry or fail to carry the ideas we hold most dear.  This May, following the lectionary, my sermons will look at a few of them.

We’ll explore the biblical journey from its beginning in ‘the garden’ (Eden), to its conclusion in ‘the beautiful city’ (New Jerusalem).  We’ll consider that city’s river and ‘tree of life.’  We will talk about glory, a concept attributed both to things divine, and things military.  We’ll celebrate Pentecost, the miracle in which the Holy Spirit (as tongues of fire) descend upon a diverse group of worshipers and help them to understand each other.  Finally, we’ll contemplate ‘Woman Wisdom,’ a feminine image of the divine honored in the book of Proverbs.

Whether the language of our faith looks more like a mine-field or a tapestry has a lot to do with our spirits.  But the season of the Spirit endows the faithful with the wisdom to navigate the dangers and the inspiration to take their creative turn at the great loom.

See?  I am making all things new!  -Rev. 21.5

‘May God have mercy on the assassins.’  Shot while celebrating mass, these were his last words.
Three years earlier, few in El Salvador would have expected Archbishop Oscar Romero to become the hope of the nation’s poor. The Vatican had chosen him precisely because he didn’t like to make waves or confront authority.  But that was before his conversion.It’s not that he wasn’t a natural leader or that he didn’t care for the plight of his flock, but a new and radical kind of theology was rocking the very pillars of tradition which had kept the authority of the church secure for hundreds of years.  Romero was a doctrinal and social conservative.

In the 1960′s, a generation after WWII, the world’s great powers were in turmoil. Though the imperial aspirations of Germany and Japan had been defeated, new contests for power played themselves out around the globe. Europe was losing its colonies in Africa and Asia to independence movements. The US and Soviets were the new powers and each believed their security and prosperity depended upon gaining influence in their respective hemispheres. Continue reading »

Until this last week, I’d only known an ‘avatar’ to be an image used to represent a person interacting with others in an on-line game or chat room.  Needless to say, this word is finding a new place in our culture.

Those more culturally literate than I would have associated ‘avatar’ with the human incarnations of Hindu deities, often portrayed as half-human, half-animal.  ‘Avatar’ comes from the Hindu verb ‘to cross over.’  Those who have already seen the Oscar-nominated, highest-grossing film of all time will make the connection.

Avatar, the movie, is set several hundred years in the future.  Industry, for those on planet Earth, has grown increasingly dependent upon resources that can only be found off-planet.  Jake Sully, a paraplegic war veteran, is hired by a mining company operating on the distant world of Pandora to help them with a special project.

The plot starts to look like Dances with Wolves.  Pandora is inhabited by giant humanoids called the Na’vi who dress like Native Americans, and generally commune with nature.  Of course, the mining company wants to extract an insanely precious mineral right out from underneath the Na’vi home. Continue reading »

I’m about the last person from whom you’d ever hear a warning about getting too much of a good thing. My friends argue about whether I’m a perfectionist or a maximalist. I usually argue for the latter. I really don’t need everything to be perfect and I don’t take it personally when it’s not, but I do constantly find myself asking whether there wouldn’t be some way that we could improve what we’re doing or making or partaking in.

To be fair, I’m not always the one to catch myself over-compensating for things that are not quite good enough. I’m thinking that the very idea of ‘good enough’ is my kryptonite. It robs me of my super-power, the ability to make just about anything better.

Virtue or vice seems to depend on one’s perspective, and the most startling perspective to come my way lately is being bandied about by Barbara Ehrenreich in her latest book, Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America.

Honestly, the first time I heard it, I found the title troubling. I think positivity is one of my personal attributes. Whether or not you agree, it is something to which I aspire. In fact, I’ve often thought that negativity was one of our deeper social problems.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess to not having read this book, but I have heard her share her thoughts on the subject in two separate public-radio interviews.

Last week, Fred Utter re-introduced me to that ‘Magic Eye’ thing that was so popular in the nineties. You know the funky carpet-pattern looking photo collage that supposedly contains a 3D image if you can just look at it the right way. Well it actually does occasionally work, but you have to hold the picture close and focus on it close, without bringing your eyes together as you normally do when you’re trying to look at one point. In relaxing, and allowing each eye to take in a slightly different image, a third image appears, in three dimensions. Enough said.

Ehrenreich is trying to do a similar thing. In observing several seemingly independent cultural tendencies, she has perceived a single pattern. Continue reading »

When I asked Tom Mullen, one of my favorite seminary professors, to preach at my ordination service, I expected him to be clever and profound; but when he titled his message, ‘Unfit for the Ministry’ I wondered if choosing the faculty comedian had been wise.  Was my vocation to be in jeopardy just as it was getting off the ground?

My first pastorate was in Indiana.  Out East, when people learn you are a pastor, they tend to smile and commend you for your willingness to serve the church.  I knew Seattle would be different, but I didn’t know that honestly answering one of people’s first questions upon meeting me would end so many conversations before they’d begun. Continue reading »

There’s a kind of power that comes to students who understand their stake in the questions they ask. I remember well the day at Manchester College when I ran into some students from a school out East. They were traveling around the country to share their experiences with student-led classes.

“Student led?” I asked. Was I hearing them right? Why would a school let students lead a class? Weren’t we here to learn from our professors?

They shared the story of their own student-led class experience. I was fascinated by the process they used to get together and decide what they wanted to study. The whole thing was making me laugh-not the way one laughs at something ridiculous, but more the way one laughs at a clever friend’s description of an event that you were at, but hadn’t found funny at the time, but now can see was actually hilarious.

I don’t think I’d ever spent time thinking about what I might want to study, if I actually got to choose entirely on my own. That realization started me down the rabbit hole. Endless possibilities! Continue reading »

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then? Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I’ve always been a fan of Candid Camera. My stomach was sore for days from laughing so hard at the episode where the construction site porta-potty was secretly mounted to a fork-lift. Viewers watch worker after worker suffer varying degrees of puzzlement and consternation upon opening the door to a world now 12 feet below them. Of course, the subjects eventually spot the camera and small crowd splitting their guts over their plight and it’s smiles all around.

Humor is healing. We’ve known this intuitively for some time, but it wasn’t `til the 1970′s that scientists began to acknowledge a connection between our frame of mind and our bodies ability to heal. Norman Cousins may have triggered the revolution. After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, he checked himself into a hotel and had films of Candid Camera and the Marx Brothers brought in. He literally belly laughed himself back to health. Intrigued by his widely shared story, scientists began studies which later confirmed his conclusion. The new science of psychoneuroimmunology was born! Continue reading »

The spiders around my house are looking healthy and fat these days. When I first moved out here, they looked exotic and frightening. In Indiana, it was mostly Daddy long-legs. I used to diligently sweep them all out of sight.

At some point, I called a truce. I asked them to stay out of my hair and not to crowd out the doorways or windows. Now, if they spin their webs out of the way, I leave them alone. I gently move the inevitable encroachers to better spots. I’ve learned to tell individual spiders apart and must confess to esteeming the more diligent and crafty among them. I see now that I am the host of these little creatures guarding my house from annoying insects.

I’m still a bit squeamish around the Hobos. This is the time of year they try to get inside to lay their eggs. I’m not cool with the ones that can really hurt me. I’ve had enough pain for one year. Continue reading »

Conventional wisdom says the right time to celebrate the new year is January.  To be sure, that’s when our Gregorian calendar changes and our attentions turn toward the year ahead.  But that’s backward from the way we mark the passing of our personal time passages.  This March, I’ll celebrate my 40th year of living, but in truth, I’m already living in it.  Am I only to celebrate upon its completion?

Advent time is screwy.  It’s liminal time, in-between time, not-quite-but-just-about-time.

For Christians, it is the beginning of the new year.  The season of Pentecost ends with a celebration of Christ’s reign as a different kind of sovereign.  Advent takes us all the way back to the beginning of the Jesus story as his world and ours prepare for his coming. Continue reading »

Almost every day at work, I hear one of my life’s favorite sounds–recess at the elementary school across the street–hundreds of kids having all kinds of fun. Then I hear one of the saddest sounds–the bell that calls them all back to class. Why did we ever let them take recess away from us? I think it’s time to bring it back.

Seriously, how much fun was that? Sure, I know there are bullies and fights and not getting picked to be on the team you want, but that stuff happens off the playground too. Drama and trauma aren’t the exclusive realm of the playground. But man, there’s a lot of fun stuff that never happens unless you have some regularly set-aside time to play with others.

The other Sunday, a bunch of folks from the church went over to carol at the Northaven Retirement Community. From two years old to over seventy, that group had fun, especially singing to the 80-plus crowd who will always show up to hear a choir.

Honestly we were a somewhat unruly bunch. Not that everyone at Northaven likes to color inside the lines, but we had kids roaming ALL around, wanting to be held, then not, then deciding to go help Harumi play the piano, then deciding not to sing. My favorite was to see several of our youngsters helping Rob direct the singing.

Some adults get cranky amid such antics, but not our group and not Northaven either. On this day, it was grace abounding. Unless I was missing something, it seemed like every one of us was just enjoying ourselves.

I wish more of my life was like that. I mean, haven’t we all wanted to direct the choir and play electric guitar and drums at one time or another–so much that we just acted like we were, even though we didn’t really know how to, or didn’t have anyone that would actually let us do it for real?

Continue reading »