Living Beyond Means

““power is made perfect in weakness”
Paul, II Corinthians 12.9

The church, then, as a body of Christians, is constantly active;...living continually beyond its means.
The Politics of Discipleship, Graham Ward, pg 201”

Lent carries a paradox, or at the very least, a challenge. 

The word itself, derived through a history of languages and derivations may have originally meant "to lengthen," referring to the arrival or spring in the northern hemisphere.  Yet, as a season in the church, Lent is a countdown to Good Friday, to a death.  To further challenge us, Lent begins with ashes and a reminder of our coming death.  As the world's day light increases, our light begins to fade.

Tom Oord writes in The Uncontrolling Love of God, that, "When creatures cooperate with their Creator, shalom may unfurl in extraordinary ways" (Oord, 2015, Kindle 2808).  Cooperation means following the way of grace.  Following the way of grace leans on God and God's provision.  Walking in the path God lays down has no guarantee of painlessness.  We just walk by faith.

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return

Lent acknowledges the destination of this journey.  One way or another, death won't be escaped.  Trying to escape it can become an anxiety producing, destruction laden, and mind numbing escapade.  Probably bringing death closer rather than keeping it at a distance.

The imposition of ashes beginning Lent brings us up close and personal to death.  Traditionally, quoting from Genesis 3:19, the officiant says, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  

Just this morning I was warmed by the sight of the morning sun.  Noticing that it crept above the trees and houses and began to reflect sunshine into the windows.  Just as the days are lengthening and the signs of spring are emerging, we begin to think of life, newness, buds, blooms, and warmth.  But as the days are lengthening, they are also passing by.  Just as athletes speak of "leaving it all out on the field" so too is life.  We have this glorious creation all around us and there's no reason to hold onto our lives as if they were an investment that if buried and left untouched will grow with time. It won't. 

Be spent

The Lenten reminder of our own end, the ashen reminder of our origin from dust and ashes, and the lengthening days of spring remind us less of the death awaiting us, but of the life we are we are pouring out for others.  Be spent.

Livable Liturgies: Anti-Apocalyptic Dog

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you…In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” Job 12.7,10

“Among the Algonquin nation…creation was brought about by Kukumthena, the Grandmother…accompanied by a dog.” In this myth, creation is continued and the end of the world forestalled, by the “work” of this dog. “Each day Kukumthena works at weaving a great basket, and when it is completed, the world will end. Fortunately for us, each night the dog unravels her day’s work.  Those of us who have lost rugs, clothing, or furniture, to a dog’s oral dexterity may never be convinced that that ability could be put to such use as forestalling the end of the world” (The Monks of New Skete, 1978, p. 3).

Mika, keeps the world from ending, an anti-apocalyptic angel. At least she postpones the apocalypse by unraveling her own things.

The unraveling work of the anti-apocalyptic angel-dog, stuffing chewed out of the dog bed.

What if unraveling the weave of the great basket is more than a metaphor? Having a dog shares characteristics of having children, of attending to a spouse, or caring for friends. It’s just that a dog has less qualms about telling someone to pay attention.  A dog will not put on a false display of patient waiting. Whining, licking, nudging, pawing at me, she tells me to pay attention to her.

Job wants me to do more than attend to animals, but rather "ask the animals, and they will teach" something.  If there's a constant undoing to the end of all things from the myth about Kukumthena and the dog. Why is it that that myth emerged with the dog acting that way? Is there something about a dog's loyalty that has a future orientation? That the future is not all written out and a closed book? That maybe there is an open future and God has more in store than I can ask or imagine? 

The mystic Matthew Fox always referred to his dog as his spiritual director. I get that. I have one too.  I'd like it if my cat was as forthcoming, but he's a bit aloof.

Livable Liturgies: Routines are Easy, Routines are Hard

“he got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously”

If it wasn’t for my spiritual director’s collar, she would have face planted in the gutter. Fortunately, the collar was attached to the leash – oh yeah, remember, my spiritual director is my dog.  This morning while on our routine walk the sidewalks were icy.

This morning would have been a reasonable morning to skip our walk. The morning light was dispersed by freezing fog looking as if dawn was stalled and needed a push. But the routine had to go on. That is one of the reasons I wanted a dog, to remind me of the routines that I need to be committed to whether I wanted to or not.

In some ways, routines are easy. The habitual rehearsal of that which took place the day before, the season before, the year before. I know what to do and where to go – and usually I know why.

Routines are Easy

Routines have a goal. They are headed somewhere. Routines are about routes, pathways, the beaten path. The beaten path where the grass lays down, the rocks smoothed by friction, where the way is clear. These routines, these pathways are easy. The resistance is not from the route, but whether or not to get started and to keep walking.

My morning routine: first, get some coffee, quietly. Second, sit in my comfy chair and read my morning devotions. Third get more coffee, maybe some oatmeal. Read and think. More coffee. Sit. Pray. More coffee. Get lunches packed and send my wife and son off to school. Every morning, more or less, this routine centers my day. I find often that when the routine is broken, I feel off center.

Routines are Hard

In the morning as I practice my routine walk, geese fly overhead. Nearly every morning. Don’t know where they’re headed, or where they came from. What did they do all through the night? And where?

But when the sun’s light is at the goose-alarm-clock angle, they stir and they fly over. Some land in alfalfa fields nearby, some in the river, or suburban ponds. Every day, like clockwork, set by the daily rhythms of the sun. It doesn’t seem to matter what the weather is like, but the geese are dedicated. Watching a goose flopping its big flipper-feet one step at a time to break the ice, swimming and nibbling on the grass below. That poor bird must have been at least a little bit chilly.

Sometimes routines are hard to stay with. Bright, shiny, new things can catch our attention and distract us. I am easily side-tracked. Daily tasks, picking up things, cleaning the kitchen, playing with the dog; reading emails and magazines and books and blogs; sometimes just wanting to nap or hit snooze on the alarm. Other times the challenge comes from opposition: budget woes and unemployment, depression and lethargy, doubt and unanswered questions.

Routines are hard. The word route comes from the Latin “rupta”, or to rupture. Sometimes sticking to routine is hard and requires breaking through something: ice, drowsiness, distractions, disappointments.

Routines are Easy and Routines are Hard

Livable Liturgies: Winter

I’ve had friends and acquaintances who reside in the great Down Under: New Zealand and Australia. Thinking about Christmas with Santa wearing shorts and coming in on a surfboard has never been an easy to imagine. Advent is about awaiting the Savior’s birth in the “bleak mid-winter” not the bright sunshine.

But as I take in the beauty of the late fall and the early winter in the northern hemisphere I feel a longing to see the land of my southern friends, especially on the days my fingers go numb from the cold snow I’ve been shoveling from the front walk. While I am aware of the trappings of the season all around from tales of magical sugar plums and sacred angels, the season of waiting, Advent, places a certain holy dissonance in my outlook. Waiting implies patience, the result of hope-filled endurance, arising from the awareness that the present is still lacking something essential. So we wait.

As the Apostle Paul puts it, "we groan inwardly" in the time of waiting, a waiting that Paul says includes all of nature waiting with eager longing the birth of a new era (Rom 8).  We, and creation, groaning and waiting go together. But so does hoping and waiting. As we wait for God to bring a new dawn each morning, we trust in God to bring the new era of "peace on earth".

Though we hope, we can still groan. Almost like passenger weary of travel asking, "Are we there yet?"

We hope by looking forward. We remember the previous graces and become open to receiving them again, fresh and new, but familiar. I await the green-leafed shade trees turning shades of red and gold and look forward to the crunching of leaves. I love late fall trees stripped and waiting, snow sleet, cold rain forcing us inside with coffee and tea and sweaters seeking warmth. Each season, I wait, and hope for the next.

In the heat of summer and the exorbitant air conditioning bills,

I long for the coolness of the fall.

In the barren-branched, steel grey skies of fall with dampness and mud,

I long the clean white blanket of winter’s snow.

In the frigid, shortened days of winter’s darkness

I look for the new sprouts and blossoms of spring.

In the abundance of pollen and blooms my allergies and sneezing longs for the hot, bright days of summer’s searing sun.

I begin to look forward to fall’s steel-grey skies.

Always seeking that which is to come, in faith and hope, we:

Worship God in the sacrament of the present abundance of available grace. Worship God in the restless impatience, trusting that God who has yet more in store. Worship God with grateful hands open and head held back receiving sun, wind, rain, and snow. Worship God with wrinkled forehead and closed eyes seeing by faith and not by sight what wonders are yet to come. Worship God in the grace-filled now and in the impatient hope of what is yet to come.