Tag Archives: hope

Let’s count some blessings

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Psalm 4:6-8  Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?” Le t the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD,  make me dwell in safety.

I did not grow up in a spiritually rich atmosphere, in most ways. But the atmosphere of the U.S. of my youth, as it still has in many ways, had a lot of spiritual direction floating around. Christianity was the background for a lot of popular culture, even though it was quickly being privatized and beginning to be deconstructed. The old movies that TCM keeps recycling taught me a lot about how to relate to God, even when they weren’t trying that hard. For instance, when I woke up in the middle of the night last night, I had a choice. I could count the undone things that faced me or I could “count my blessings instead of sheep” like Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney (Aunt of George) taught me.

I am not always lulled back to sleep by my blessings, but counting them is a lot better  than counting my anxieties. Last night I was recounting the many amazing people who bless my life with their radical faith, dogged hope and expansive love. Once I got started admiring them all, I realized that I was surrounded and blessed. I was feeling Psalm 4.

Let me just name the top ten people who have blessed me this week, only. I could enumerate the blessings of my great wealth and delightful family, highlighting the good time I had with Josiah and Brendan, yesterday, and how I saw Rachel/Zach/Corie and Randy/Garrett at Seussical. But there are even more extraordinary blessings that should not go unsung. I hope I instigate your own enumeration.

1. Art Bucher and Aaron Dahlstrom, a twofer. They multiplied a cell. As we sat at the Morning Glory Diner, I was kind of too-ebullient, maybe, and acting out a bit, because I was in the midst of the best Coordinating Group ever. It is still amazing to see people replicating more outposts of the kingdom in an organic, authentic way.

2. Joshua Grace pulled Ralph Moore off the shelf and told the Inner Metro Green guys to center their efforts on planting a well-founded, oddly-relevant church in Lancaster. I admire his capabilities. And I was blessed by the audacity of the church planters, too!

3. Jeremiah Alexander took the Psalters to Manor Church on Thursday night to rile up some worship and make some partners for our mission of compassionate service.

4. Rebekah Edwardson took over the Treasurer’s job and began to preside over a brand new team of treasurer’s: Country (oops Courtney) Jones, Danny Bresler-Nowak, Kathryn Seyfried. They are really putting it together with their new remote access technology (when it works) and commitment to fastidious sharing.

5. Annie Kopena and a group of delightful women ushered Alice Puchalsky into adulthood last night with their own rendition of a red tent (which everyone should read).

6. Christina Kallas not only raises money for AIDS awareness and treatment, she has great relationships at Philly Aids Thrift where she tells people about and shows them Jesus. Her co-workers bought her a lily for Easter out of respect born in their unbelieving hearts just by knowing her.

7. Justin Pascale and Katie Linton were so worn out from teaching Thursday they almost fell asleep at our cell meeting. I am blessed by the teachers who pour out their lives for children.

8. Joshua Schnapf is excited about what the Events Team might be able to do. He wants to combine the imagination he gets from working with the Barnes Foundation with his life in Christ. He walks into our space and imagines art flourishing. Lovely.

9. Audrey Robinson jumped into the cleaning rotation and gets to the building even when it is not her turn in the rotation, I understand. You can’t have too many friends like that.

10. Toni Gardner and Kelly Musser both jumped into Rachel Sensenig’s cell to help give the leadership for multiplication. Daring women are what we need.

The more people I named the more I could name. But I decided on ten in advance. Maybe you’d like to add a few to the list yourself. The world can keep you awake at night – it is such a mess. But if we turn our sights on the resurrection life Jesus keeps raising from the dying things all around, it makes it easier to rest.

Well-centered hope: The alternative to a new oppressive holiness

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Circle of Hope is among the co-conspirators behind Conspire magazine, brought alongside by our covenant-pal, Shane Claiborne. I like the passion. An article in the first issue by Nate Buchanan gives me an opportunity to talk about something I have been meaning to work on for quite a while.

While I like the direction Nate is taking when he is working on participating with God’s liberation of the oppressed, I am wondering about the theology of one of his statements. I am not rebutting his article, as much as he is allowing me to think out loud about something that has been troubling me. He says:

“Sadly, our communities often mirror ‘the powers that be’ in the dominant culture. While we profess to be counter-cultural, we are most often represented, spoken for, and led by white, heterosexual, educated males – despite the large numbers of intelligent and capable women, persons of color, and GLBT members of our communities. If we seek to follow a Messiah who, by Luke’s account, silenced a male priest and had a pregnant teenage girl proclaim the greatness of his coming, this is a crucial issue.”

Democracy does not equal righteousness

I think our communities (Nate’s and Circle of Hope’s) do often mirror “the powers that be” in the way Nate describes and that needs to keep changing. But I also think there is an even deeper change that needs to happen. We need to give up thinking that democratic rights = righteousness.

In the U.S. the dominant culture (and I am talking about the culture at its semi-God-fearing best) fully believes that when everyone is given their rights, when the marginalized are given their share of the power and wealth, when everyone is free to be their self-actualized self, then the kingdom will have arrived — or, at least, that must be what God is working on. Whether Bush is “liberating” Iraq or Obama is easing the situation of the oppressed, political “freedom” is the goal.

While I think having whatever passes for “democracy” or “human rights” in our day is better than being subject to some other philosophy — like the Taliban destroying schools, I still don’t think Jesus came merely to give teenage girls the aspiration to be president one day, as if getting one’s share of the power will save you. And I think people who believe in such aspirations so fervently should admit that they generally think it is a good thing to deprive the Taliban of their religious duty to oppress.

One Nation Under God by Jon McNaughton. Click for website

Does Jesus rule or the founding fathers?

I doubt that anyone is interested in being that consistent. But I do think people unwittingly assume Jesus would have written the Declaration of Independence, if he’d had a chance. Among the Circle of Hope we have a cadre of people who spend an inordinate amount of time judging themselves and others for how well they or we meet the criteria the insubordinate-to-Jesus-world places on society for what is right these days.

The genuinely oppressed and the so-called white males, alike, (the latter who are still generally clueless about their privilege, in my opinion) end up seeing themselves through the eyes of some bureaucratized sociological definition, not the eyes of Jesus. Even in the church, somehow, Jesus does not have a right to rule the community, but the last guilt-ridden professor who assessed someone’s status, does — “If my household or church is not balanced properly, I am living in sin!” It is a strange new holiness. I don’t think it was great when the Christians were a bit like the Taliban and they thought it was holy for men to avoid women, to segregate people of color and to invisibilize GLBT folks, but I’m not sure it is that much better to live out a reaction to that and be damned if you don’t. Better to err on the side of the latter, I think, but can we skip the damning?

Our former lenses need to pass away

If we are really going to live in the kingdom, the definitions we had for ourselves when we lived in league with the passing-away world need to pass away, so we can be named and empowered by Jesus, not by our cultural status or by our rejection of cultural status. I keep thinking of these verses from Colossians as I mull over what I am being taught by the new holiness teachers:

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Col. 2:6-8)

Obviously, that is just what Nate is talking about, since the church has been the lapdog of the system for centuries and it should be appropriately countercultural! My problem is that I keep getting taught a new “hollow and deceptive philosophy” to replace the previous one. I need to test out what I am hearing to see whether I am depending on Christ and not becoming dependent on the most attractive “basic principle of this world” I can find.

I fully respect people who are on the front lines of liberation, undermining the powers that be. I see myself as among their number. I was working on it last night when we were talking together about how to make a covenant of love with one another as the body of Christ, a circle of hope. In our group of thirty or so there were people of color, women and men, younger and older, professional and not so much, wealthier and poorer. I did not have all the sociological elements I prize in full bloom, although I thought we were getting closer. But I did have my hope well-centered, I think. The new humanity I long for won’t arrive merely as a result of my tireless attempts to bring it in — even through my power to give up my power! Jesus needs to reign.