Power & Perspective

Ever have a time in your life when you just need some perspective? I surely do. One way I find it is by stargazing, or taking a walk in the woods. When you get out of yourself for a little while, sometimes those problems and issues which seem so large and so daunting will shrink back into their proper perspective. And if you are truly dealing with something huge, that perspective may provide you with a new way of seeing and tackling the problem. And, if nothing else, you'll get a little rest :-)

Here's a video called "Powers of Ten" will give you some perspective. There are several versions of it floating around, and this vid is not new, can't even remember when or where I first saw it. There's also a newer version of it narrated by Morgan Freeman that is cool, too. Whichever one you look at, it might give you a bit (or a lot) of perspective, and help you locate yourself in the grand scheme of things...

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day weekend. It's come to be a time of celebrating the start of summer, picnics and family cookouts, parades, golf outings, reunions, fishing tournaments, ballgames, the end of school for the summer.

This year, as in the past several years, and as we prepare to celebrate, we are a nation at war. Which should give us pause, entering a holiday conceived to memorialize the human cost of war. And since we are at war, on this Memorial Day, many families--some whom we know and live with--are remembering loved ones recently killed and wounded. It's not like in the past, when we rightly paused to remember those who fought and died a generation or two ago. It is the current generation of young men and women who are fighting and dying. So it makes me reflective, and I think about the bumper sticker on the car of a wonderful friend, which says "Wage Peace." I understand that hope and imperative. Another good friend wrote a long letter this week, itself a response to a letter from her friend who had been looking at pictures--not pretty--from the current war. Here is an excerpt from what she wrote, followed by my response...and then a prayer for Memorial Day.

"We desire to extend to each individual the kind of gracious and radical hospitality that Jesus practiced. But to do so is also to acknowledge that we are broken and deeply flawed human beings whom God is gradually knitting back together. We cannot and will not reflect a perfect hospitality, a deep and abiding generosity of spirit without the presence of God in our own lives. Equally, we have to name and reflect on the places where we are guilty both of individual and of corporate sin."

Amen. And here's the part I struggle with...

Why are we broken? Original sin. We're born busted. Or, born "tabula rasa" in a busted world that breaks us and molds us, inevitably, into less than God's intention for us. Call it whatever you will, this brokenness means there will always be, until Jesus comes back, those in this world who will use evil--in all its guises, cruelties, and manifestations--to impose their selfish will on others. Do we not see this every day?

How to respond? Especially to those so totally amoral and broken that hacking off arms of innocent children, or burning people alive (to name just a few horrors of war--ever read "The Rape of Nanking"; THAT one will keep you wake nights!)? I used to think Gandhi's form of nonviolence could and would always out. In some circumstances, perhaps it can. I also know that, in this busted world, the poor we will always have with us, as well as war, and selfishness, and cruelty. Jesus warned us about that. No amount of wishing it weren't so can change that. That said, of course, I believe in working for peace, and trying to end war. It just is never going to happen until the redemption of creation is complete. And only God knows when that is going to happen.

So I will honor those who fight, and celebrate that we have a military, unlike that in other places, where there ARE rules, and where we continue to try and reduce the costs of war--understanding of course that you cannot make something inherently bad into something good. Be that as it may, most soldiers I know--even generals, especially the generals--NEVER want to go to war. They've seen it. They understand the costs. They know it's really bad.

I'm not smart enough to figure it all out! I believe in Waging Peace...and think we should have a cumpulsory draft, like in Israel. I believe in Just War theory and diplomacy...and in sending in the Navy Seals, or a Marine Expeditionary Unit when the occasion demands. I believe in walking softly, treading lightly...and having a big stick, just in case. We SHOULD be careful, and count our own personal and corporate sin; that is at heart the focus of the debate about the current war, when you get right down to it...and we all want it to be over, and soon.

Until then, let us not forget those who have given part of themselves, literally, or given their very lives, for us. Whether or not you agree that the current war is "just," our brothers and sisters fighting it are doing it for us, and because they are willing to risk everything for us.

A Memorial Day Prayer

God in Heaven, how you must grieve our warring ways. Eden is your goal for Earth, but Hell is what we so often make of it. However we are responsible for turning Heaven into Hell, forgive us, and through your ever-gracious and loving Spirit, convict of us our sin and short-sightedness, our greed and ambition, our pride and lusts for power, and every other cause that turns us against one another. Your Son would have us seek you first, before everything else. So simple...and yet we are so unwilling. God, hurriedly, quickly, change our willful ways and be merciful to us.

And Lord, grant peace beyond whatever we can give to those who have given their lives to defend and protect us. Be with their families in a supernatural way, that they might know peace, even as they suffer the terrible cost of war. Strengthen and miraculously comfort those with ruined bodies; unfailingly help those who help them to offer great compassion, and unending patience. Stir the hearts of all those who have the means to help the wounded and the dying, especially our leaders who hold the purse strings, so that nothing is held back. Help us all to count the costs, and understand; to tread lightly when we can, and exercise restraint when we must, and serve courageously when needed. And finally, God of Creation, help us pursue, with your unstoppable divine power, every option for justice and peace, before we turn against others and unleash our earthly power. Give us your wisdom, and help us depend less on our own. Amen.

Trinity Sunday Redux

Below is another prayer for Trinity Sunday. I guess it could apply any time though, really. Each week I usually try to include a "prayer of commitment" (or some other response for the gathered community) after the Word is proclaimed in worship. It is not enough for us to just "fill the pews" at our regular worship times. Proclaiming God's Word always demands a response. Hearing God's truth is always an invitation to us, demanding more of us than just showing up to "fill our tanks for the week." Indeed, when folks are asked "Why do you go to church?", one of the most common responses is that we go to be spiritually fed and powered-up for the week ahead. We go to worship to top off our spiritual tanks.

I contend that rightly understood, being fed and powered-up is really a BY-PRODUCT of true worship--a gift from God to be sure, but not THE reason for worship. We worship because we are CREATED to worship. We worship God mainly because God DESERVES our praises and thanksgivings. Adoration is the prime reason and motivation for worship. We are not the "audience" and God is not the Primal Actor. We are the Created whose primary responsibility is acknowledging and worshiping our Creator. As I've heard it said by some great teachers of worship, true worship should always cost us something. Check out Romans 12.1-2.

A Prayer of Commitment

Lord of Creation, we cannot look at any part of this world, even with its storms, fires, and earthquakes, and not be amazed by your power and your providence. Yet so often we live as if you don't exist! Accept our promise today to live not only to live in the knowledge of your Reality, but our promise to participate with you in renewing and redeeming the world, starting when and where we can, in our own lives, loves, and relationships. So helps us, Lord; you have made us in your image. Let us reflect that image always! Amen.

Trinity Sunday

The great theologians all say that the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity is ultimately a mystery. DUH. No kidding. 3 = 1? 1 = 3? It's totally illogical. Impossible. Dumb, even. Or so it seems.

A good friend of mine and I once had the chance to play with a helium-neon laser in an advanced high school physics project. We locked ourselves away, day after day, in a little side lab room in the physics class; and I remember we actually did more "playing" with the thing than actual research--like bouncing the little beam out the window with a mirror and freaking people out in the school parking lot...or shooting it through a small hole in the door and shining it on the back of the physics teacher's head while he wrote on the blackboard. :-) But, we did do some honest research. Through a vastly elaborate proof, using the laser, a water tank, mirrors, and who knows what else, my friend (a mathematical whiz) actually proved 4 = 0. Sort of. Though we could find no fault with our proof...well, let's just say it didn't pass muster.

That 3 = 1 doesn't pass muster with a lot of people either. One of the main criticisms of Christianity, a monotheistic religion (ONE God) is that the Trinity seemingly contradicts monotheism. And, another complaint is that the Trinity, per se, never appears anywhere in the Bible. Which it doesn't; it is implied in many places, but is never mentioned specifically. So Christians often resort to physical analogies to try and explain or comprehend the Trinity. For example, think of an egg. It has three parts (the "white", the yolk, and the shell), but it is ONE thing, and would not "be" an egg if it were missing one of the parts.

Or consider water. It can exist in three distinct physical states--as a gas or vapor (steam), as a solid (ice), or as a liquid. Yet, in all its forms, it is the same thing: H2O. Theoretically, any of the chemical elements can exist in these three states, if the physical conditions are right. Still, these kinds of analogies are far from perfect. The truly skeptical and rationally-minded among us just cannot buy into 3 = 1. It just is not RATIONAL, or POSSIBLE.

I have to chuckle at this. Entire technologies and industries (even economies) are built upon the "irrational" and the "impossible." We have never really seen an atom, let alone the infinitesimally small subatomic particles that make up atoms, like quarks and gluons and leptons, and all the crazy zoo of particle physics (and to "see" these we have to "smash" atoms and watch what flies out of the wreckage). A lot of it is conjecture, theoretical, which seems to fit the math, and sort of explain basic physical laws . Quantum science just doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes; even the great granddaddy of quantum physics, Albert Einstein, once said "The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks." I personally am still trying to wrap my head around the whole particle-wave dichotomy, which says an elemental particle, like a photon or an electron, is sometimes a wave, and at other times is not a wave, but an individual particle. There's a degree of uncertainty about when and how this is that. Thanks, Dr. Heisenberg!

So when it comes to the Trinity, or just about any of the great theological "mysteries" of the Christianity, I accept it/them on faith, on the witness of Scripture, and centuries of wisdom from people who are a lot smarter than I am. I also accept it/them through subjective experience. Again, the ultra-rationalist will say "See, you can't really PROVE it though!" True enough. But then, neither can I prove the existence of an electron...yet I still flip on the light switch every morning so I don't trip on my way to the bathroom. Neither can I prove the quantum weak force...but you better believe I'll get a chest X-ray when my doctor tells me too!

A Prayer for Trinity Sunday

Father God, Creator, you call the worlds into being, scattering stars and galaxies like dandelion seeds...and it works, and it is good, and it is way beyond our comprehension. Still, accept our praise and thanksgiving for the mystery and glory of creation, and for our very own existence.

Lord Jesus, Anointed One, who makes the Creator comprehensible to our feeble and limited minds, you put a human face on Eternity. You enflesh Vastness and Timelessness. You make real what seems impossible. You make personal that which is totally Other. You reconcile us with Unattainable Perfection. Without you, we are lost, and ignorant, and sold to the slavery of mere knowledge.

Holy Spirit, you are the unseen yet real Power of life itself. You hold us together. You teach us what cannot be known. You save what cannot be saved. You humble our unspeakable pride, convict our selfish hearts, heal our broken lives, and tame our savage lusts. And you do it only when we let you.

So, most loving Triune God, help us let you. Nudge us closer. Speak to us from beyond time and enter each of our moments; love us into loving others. Do the impossible amongst us, and in us, that we will never cease to wonder at your mystery, and give you glory for the majesty of all that is, and all you make it possible for us to be. Amen.

An Invocation for The Day of Pentecost

Thanksgiving comes in the fall of the year. It is a holiday on which we give thanks to God for his providence...for creating, sustaining, and in general providing all we need for life. Exactly how God does this we are still learning (that's the arena of the natural sciences), and we may never understand it all. Divine Creation and Providence are at heart, mysteries, and probably always will be.

This Sunday is the Day of Pentecost, also a holiday (holy-day), that has deep roots in thanksgiving for God's providence. In ancient Israel, every year there were three major holidays (religious festivals, really). The Feast of Passover (Pesach) came in the early spring. Then 7 weeks later came the Feast of Weeks (Shavu'ot). This festival was also known as the Festival of Harvest, or First Fruits, because its main focus was similar to our modern U.S. Thanksgiving: to praise and thank God for the food we eat, for the sustaining work of God in nature. The very first sheaf of grain that was cut for the wheat harvest was offered to God, the "first fruits"; indeed, no harvesting was allowed and no flour was to be ground until this offering was made. The Greek name for the harvest festival was Pentecost. For Christians, it commemorates the day when the earliest followers of Jesus received a special "anointing" of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2), and some 3,000 new believers were added to the early church. Indeed, the day of the first Christian Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the Church. Let it be for us a true day of thanksgiving--it is, after all, a day when the "first fruits" of the Church were harvested!

Here is a Prayer of Invocation for Pentecost. It reflects something I have always thought a bit strange about invocations. An invocation is a prayer invoking God's presence...hence the name! We use them in many places (meetings, meals, graduations--where prayer is still allowed--etc.), and not just during regular worship services. Yet, I believe and most of us often say that God is always with us. So...why do we need to "invoke" God's presence? The truth is, we don't. Usually, it is WE who need to become more present to and aware of God, and pay attention to his indwelling Spirit, who never leaves us!

An "Invocation" for Pentecost:

Lord God, each week as we come together to worship you, we invoke the Spirit upon our gathering. In reality, the Holy Spirit is always with us, for the Spirit dwells within us, from the moment of our baptism and rebirth, given as priceless, timeless gifts of your grace. Your are always with us. You never leave us. You are as close to us as our own breathing. Your breath is our breath, our very life. Come afresh like a rushing wind, a refreshing breeze, and inhabit our praises. Pour out an overflowing portion of your Spirit on our worship, that we might worthily and passionately give glory to your name. Move us to pay attention, and listen, and live in your presence, not just in this hour, but always! Amen.

Yeah, I know...Ascension Day was LAST week

...but I didn't get around to this until now.

For the uninitiated, Ascension Day falls on the Christian liturgical calendar one week before Pentecost Sunday, which itself falls 50 days after Easter. I'm late with this. Oh well...save it for next year!

A Prayer for Ascension Day

Risen Lord, now you arise for good, ascending to the Father in heaven,
Ascending to whence you came,
Not to leave us behind, but to send your Spirit,
To prepare a place for us as you promised,
And that you might be with us in every circumstance, every place, every time;
In every one of our failures,
In all our celebrations and victories;
In every one of our doubting moments and seasons of confusion,
In every hurting place, in every moment of woundedness and sorrow,
In every stressful occasion, in every dark night,
And in the brightest day, and every hopeful embrace.
You ascend in order to expand your presence,
Which we so take so often for granted, or forget, or ignore,
Or frankly disbelieve.

And when you left, your angels asked why we stand there,
Looking up, grieving again, lost in selfish thoughts,
Or wondering what it all means.
Ascended and Present One,
Help us not so much to stand around, looking up, wondering where to find you;
Help us step out of ourselves, knowing you are always with us, always there,
Always willing, always waiting, always loving.
Help us bear your love as we look around and step out in faith,
Empowered by your presence, comforted by your peace,
Emboldened by your courage, convicted by your truth,
Redeemed by your suffering,
Anointed by your Spirit,
And sent by your command.

No longer do we look up in wonder,
But we reach out in love and faith;
No longer do we grieve and hide,
But we press the truth and confront all evil;
No longer timid, we are blessed; no longer lost, we are found.
No longer afraid, Lord, we will seek who you seek, walk where you walked,
Love whom you loved, challenge those you challenged,
And always, everywhere, every time, giving you all praise and honor!

This is how we want to live, Risen Lord, Ascended Son.
So help us, so help us, and let us not cease to see, and understand!

Amen.

Well, why not?

Everyone is blogging these days. And, from what I see, it's a really mixed bag out there in the blogosphere. Part of me says "so what makes you think that with all these billions of ideas floating around, that someone would want to see YOURS?" I think that a lot, actually. There's already a bunch of "spiritual life" and prayer-based sites. Who needs another.

But, as a pastor and a Christian, with a passion for writing liturgy and not satisfied (at least not always) with traditional prayer forms, it's time to take a crack at this. I hope to post prayers (personal and liturgical), Biblical reflections, and occasional theological musings which maybe someone, maybe sometimes, will find helpful. Worth their time. Or perhaps, amusing. Whatever.

I see this rather like spelunking, or cave exploring...somewhat fun, sort of demanding, not knowing what to expect around the next bend, occasionally having to duck down pretty low, and often a bit scary (yep, that's me, squeezing through a tight spot in Kentucky last January, while caving with my son's Scout Troop). In reality, taking a Christ-centered, Spirit-led walk through this earthly life is always that way. At least it is for me.

So...why not give it a whirl? I may bump my head a few times, but it won't be the first time! Nor the last. I've been a pastor for over 20 years; worked on a regional church staff; and consulted with various churches about (ugh!) church growth, renewal, and revitalization. I've bumped my head, banged my shins, inserted my foot (deeply) in my own mouth, and generally wandered in the dark many a time.

I've learned to always keep extra batteries handy, watch my step, keep my helmet on, not go off too far on my own, and always listen to the suggestions of the guide.

That's what you'll find here, mostly, as we wander along together: suggestions from (and about) the Guide.

So, welcome. Let's take a hike and explore some new places together, even if they have been visited before by others. I've noticed while scraping around underground that some places seen many times already, already explored and noted, look vastly different when the light shifts, or the water level changes, and depending upon who you are with. And, who knows? Maybe we'll discover some new passages too.