Category: Reflections

First Sunday of Advent – Hope

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Some hoped for a warrior. One who would come to overthrow the Romans. A great and might King who would stand above the masses and once again bring glory to the nation.

Some hoped for a purifier to come and cleanse the nation of it’s sin. One who would enforce the laws and punish those who transgress. One who could motivate a nation to toe the line of legalism and save themselves through piety.

What they got instead was a baby. God incarnate indeed, but God incarnate lowly, poor, and vulnerable. And a kind of hope that those obsessed with delusions of grandeur or religious fervor could barely comprehend, but which echoed in the hearts of the oppressed desperate for any hope at all. The type of hope that the one who bore this child understood when she proclaimed –

“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.” Luke 1:46-55

Jesus came as the incarnation of this hope for the brokenhearted. He urged us to love others and bring freedom to the oppressed. He healed the sick and ate meals with outcasts. He offended those calling for violent revolution and scandalized those upholding the letter of the law. But he proclaimed hope.

On this first Sunday of Advent we are called to remember that hope. To celebrate the incarnation that brought hope to those who had never dared hope before. But celebrating doesn’t mean just saying a few nice words or a prayer of thanksgiving. It means being that hope. It means as followers of Christ expressing his incarnation by being his hands and feet. By healing the sick, by setting the oppressed free, and bringing good news to the poor. Hope must be tangible and make a concrete difference in the lives of those who need it for it to be real hope. Let us not just proclaim hope, but be true harbingers of hope as we seek to live in light of the incarnation.

The words to one of my favorite carols of the season, O Holy Night, capture a bit of what this incarnate hope can look like in our lives –

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

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Creativity and Language

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You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
Your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Copyright © 1978 by Margaret Atwood.

I love that poem – the simplicity that hints at the vast complexity of language and knowledge. Teaching words to a child – naming the world and defining the boundaries. At this stage it feels like I am restricting Emma’s world. This word, this symbol, is this. Eye, hand, rain. The words are the thing itself. We struggle through this, this naming of things.

Emma – What happened to the mouse?
Me – The mice?
Emma – No, mouse.
Me – When there are more than one, they are called mice.
Emma – No, that’s not nice. Mouse.

Mice and Nice. We’re working on that one. The naming continues. Words are what she knows and there is power in words. I define the world for her, answer her “what is it?” question with a name – the right answer. Abstract words are harder. She knows saying please is associated with getting what she wants, but hasn’t quite realized that it isn’t a magical spell one casts that always results good things. She orders her world with the phrases she knows. She’s heard Dora when getting on a boat say “lifejackets – so we can be safe” enough times that as she played with her Noah’s Ark toy recently each animal had to put on a lifejacket before entering the ark. Words define, they set boundaries, they are secure.

But I see her from time to time breaking free of the constraints of language I have set for her. She is discovering the power to create with language – to be involved in her own process of naming. Tonight the space under the table became the realm of Puddleduck where the caped hero Gobbleguck attempted to escape from lions, tigers, dinosaurs and the mommy tickle monster. The world is not flat in reality, language does define and constrain, but there is still the power to create. Perhaps with just these nine colors we can create infinite shades.

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Blessings and the Divine

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Are all blessings truly only from God? We talk about being “blessed” and invoke God’s blessing on America (or the whole world if you are of a more generous bent), but are such blessings solely from the divine?

I was thinking about that today because something recalled to me a conversation I had with my best friend back in Jr. High. To give a bit of context to the conversation I should say that my friend was (is?) an atheist. She had grown up in India as her father did research on ancient Sanskrit texts. Having witnessed the effects of organized religion on creating such horrors as the Caste system, she refused to ever follow any religion. That soon led to a disbelief in God altogether.

One day our botany class was outside tending the school garden and she happened to notice the school sign. In typical early nineties feel-good self-esteem public school parlance it read – “We Are So Blessed.” My friend took serious offense at it. She starting ranting about how it violated the separation of church and state to be proclaiming such a religious statement on public school property. Most of us around her were a bit confused. None of us had assumed that the statement had any religious connotation whatsoever. I figured it meant something like “we are blessed to have such great students.” But my friend argued that the entire concept of blessing was a religious one and that blessings could only come from deities. Since she didn’t believe in said deities that sign was forcing religion upon her. She left then to go complain to our teacher who happened to be a rather militant atheist. I don’t remember what happened after that, if the sign was changed or not, but I remember vividly the oddity of that conversation.

So I wonder now if I too trace all blessings to God. If I believe that all that is good comes from God, then all blessings no matter who bestows them are from God as well. If we have been blessed to be a blessing (as the covenant describes), we then are indeed God’s avatars. God’s mystery of working behind and within all things encompasses the goodness of blessing. As a Jr. Higher I brushed such an idea aside in favor of a secular interpretation, but my atheist friend saw the hand of the divine there nonetheless.

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Prayer Synchroblog

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Kneeling
by R. S. Thomas

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

In reflecting on prayer recently I have been drawn to this poem. Prayer in my life at the moment is something that is in many ways undefined. I pray, but often in ways that seem contrived or hollow. It is when I sit in those moments of silence that my communion with God seems most authentic.

To hear from God and to be inspired to speak words of truth and encouragement from God is often something I rush into. My ideas stumble over each other in the burning passion to have something to say. I might throw in a perfunctory prayer – a ritual to be performed – out of obligation rather than intentional worship. Real prayer, real communion, goes much deeper than that and is full of silence.

Silence is nebulous. It is uncomfortable. It can’t be quantified. I can’t check off that I spent x number of minutes for my “Quiet Time” and prayer. I can’t go through the mental checklist of praying the ACTS (or CATS) acronym. It was easier when I could, but it still felt hollow.

So I’m learning to accept silence. I don’t understand it. I don’t “do it” well. But I have learned that there is meaning in the waiting. And so I wait in silence.

For other contributions to this synchroblog on prayer check out Lyn or Erin’s blogs.

Update – here’s the list of participants.

Cindy Bryan Teach Me to Pray…Again?
Lyn Hallewell God, Prayer and Me
Erin Word Prayer=Sex with God
Rick Meigs Prayer Helps that Get Me Deeper
Alan Knox Pray without Ceasing
Julie Clawson Prayer Synchroblog
Heather Synchroblog Prayer
Alex (Heather’s Husband) Prayer Synchroblog II
Lydia How Do You Pray
Che Vachon My Thoughts…
Paul Mayers Praying and Learning to Pray Again
Sonja Andrews The Appearance of Holiness
Jon Peres How Do I Pray?
Paul Walker One Congregation Experiments with Emerging Prayer
Susan Barnes Synchroblog: How Do You Pray?
Brother Maynard Fear Not the Silence
Nate Peres How Do I Pray?
Barry Taylor Synchroblog:How Do You Pray?
Emerging Grace Clearance Sale on Intercession Books
Jim Lehmer Synchroblog – How Do You Pray?
Lew A How Do You Pray? – Synchroblog
Jon Hallewell When I’m Spoken To
Deb Prayer Synchroblog
Barb Prayer without Throwing Things
Patti Blount How Do I Pray
Doug Jones How I Pray
Glenn Hagar Prayer Phases
Pam Hogeweide The Art of Blue Tape Spirituality
Mary How Do I Pray?
Rhonda Mitchell Prayer SynchroBlog
John Smulo Praying Naturally
Rachel Warwick How Do You Pray?
Barbara Legere How to Not Pray
Jonathan Brink Posture – Sitting With My Daddy
Andy How Do I Pray
Cynthia Clack How Do I Pray
Makeesha Fisher The Mystery of Prayer

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SynchroBlog on Utopia: Being Content in the Present

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The Bright Field
by R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

So this is my first contribution to the SynchroBlog community. I always enjoy reading the posts this group puts out and am glad for the chance to contribute. And as luck would have it (another strange serendipitous occurrence), this month’s topic is one that is closely related to my recent musings on sacred places and the longing for home – Utopia.

Back in the summer of 1998, I participated in my college’s study abroad program in England and Ireland. Basically I got to spend the whole summer reading great literature, visiting literary places, and discussing literary things. It was in its own indulgent way – heaven. We spent one afternoon wandering around Coole Park – the rich lush gardens where Irish poets (like Yeats) would come to escape from it all. A number of us expressed our delight at being in nature after a few weeks in Dublin. (a heartfelt sentiment from a number of us girls especially, who after being sexually attacked on one of our first nights there decided to remain in our dorms rooms after dark each night. We never got dinner and life was rather dull). Prompted by our expressions of contentment and the nature of the setting, one of our professors sat the group down in the middle of a field to discuss the temptations of Arcadia and Utopia. There are those who long for edenic Arcadia – to return to the innocence of nature and be content in a natural paradise. This of course was the appeal of Coole Park for those poets (and us college girls) wishing to escape Dublin. Then there are others who seek perfection through progress in the creation of Utopia – the master city as it were. We were warned that day of the dangers in either temptation and instructed in the need to place our hope in Heaven alone.

I see the dangers of centering our hope in Arcadia or Utopia, or Nostalgia and Progress as it were, but I can’t just sooth such longings with the opiate of escapism. We are rooted beings existing here and now on this earth. That is why I love R.S. Thomas’ poem The Bright Field. Perhaps the rugged Welsh landscapes breeds a different sort of poet than the Irish, but Thomas calls for a centering in and celebration of the present. “Life is not hurrying onto a receeding future, or hankering after an imagined past.” It is not dreaming of idyllic days in Arcadia or pursuing the construction of Utopia, but finding contentment in living life day to day. That is real life – where the passion, the love, the hard work, and the sorrows commingle. Thomas found that contentment in the present in his role as a parish priest in rural Wales – as difficult as it could be at times.

Instead of seeking God in the past or future, we need to turn aside like Moses to the burning bush and see God in the present. I love how Elizabeth Gilbert describes this need in her book Eat, Pray, Love. She writes, “Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what Buddhists call the “monkey mind” – the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl… [the] problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in the moment… if you are looking for union with the divine, this kind of forward/backward whirling is a problem. There’s a reason they call God a presence – because God is right here, right now.”

I remember in my youth being taught that certain parts of the Bible (like the sermon on the mount) didn’t matter because they would only be fulfilled in Heaven (the Kingdom of God). My whole worldview shifted when I encountered emerging thought that paid attention to the “kingdom of heaven is among you” verses. If God’s Kingdom is a present reality, life become so much more than a longing for the past or future (Arcadia or Utopia). Living in God’s presence is an everyday occurrence. We don’t have to wait for a future perfect Utopia, but can live in the Kingdom now. It’s an overwhelming idea.

The difficulty of course is understanding how exactly that plays out in each person’s life. There are places on this earth that do seem like an Arcadia (fewer that resemble Utopia). Are these sacred places just meant to be places of refreshment and respite? And what about being content in one’s present place? Is it just a matter of the will to find contentment whatever one’s circumstances, or is the longing for “home” actually God calling a person to where she can serve God best? Are all of our desires for Arcadia and Utopia just a longing for a far off heaven, a call to follow God’s kingdom now, or God pushing us to where we are meant to be?

Read other SynchroBlog Entries at –
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
John Morehead at John Morehead’s Musings
Nudity, Innocence, and Christian Distopia at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Utopia Today: Living Above Consumerism at Be the Revolution
Nowhere Will Be Here at Igneous Quill
A This-Worldly Faith at Elizaphanian
Bridging the Gap at Calacirian
The Ostrich and the Utopian Myth at Decompressing Faith
Being Content in the Present at One Hand Clapping
Eternity in their Hearts by Tim Abbott
Relationship – The catch-22 of the Internet Utopia at Jeremiah’s Blog
U-topia or My-topia? at On Earth as in Heaven
A SecondLife Utopia at Mike’s Musings
Mrs. Brown and the Kingdom of God at Eternal Echoes

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Thin Places

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As I continue to ponder the idea of sacred places and a longing for home, I keep coming back to the Celtic idea of “thin places.” CAOL AIT – spots in the world where the physical world and the spiritual world come close, the barrier between them is thin. This idea often refers to holy sites, but also refers to in-between places and times (dawn, dusk, forest edges, the seashore). Apparently in these landscapes that are not quite one thing or another the spirit world has an easier time breaking through. As much as I find the concept of thin places appealing, I’m not entirely sure what I really think.

I remember hearing a very evangelical pastor say in a sermon once that dusk was useless. At dusk one has neither the light of day or the darkness of night, so its obviously useless. My reaction to his words was to invoke the Celtic ideas of thin places – dusk is an in-between time, the time when the fey and fairies enter our world, a time when magic can happen! Not that I necessarily believe in faeries, just in the beauty of the concept. I like the idea of there being specific places or times where one finds it easier to connect with spiritual things, but I also have some theological issues with it.

If I don’t believe in a gnostic dualism that separates the physical and the spiritual and I think that God is present everywhere, how can there exist “thin places”? Would not all places and all times be equally as conducive to spiritual experiences? That is what I’ve always been taught – one can pray whenever and wherever. Pray in the car, pray while you run. One can even apparently find God in a state of the art, aesthetically empty, contemporary church. God truly is everywhere. But even with that theologically concept firmly in my mind, I still see evidence of “thin places.”

Certain circumstances and specific places are known to help people connect with God. Is it all just psychological, and if so what does it really matter? If escaping from the ordinary to a special place helps one put aside the clutter in one’s mind that crowds out God, then yes, God is more accessible in that place. If a person feels more at home – more at peace- in a certain physical location, then yes, they will mostly likely be able to experience God there. So is it just the results of our collective unconscious or consensual imagination that have us all naming the same places as functional “thin places” for us all? Is that how sacred places are formed?

I know I’m just thinking aloud here. And that these are only lighthearted musings in my attempts to reconcile my theology with my romanticism. But there is too much truth in both approaches for this to be a clear either/or. I see this in the resurgence of contemplative practices and experiential worship practiced in many emerging churches. The answers are more complex than many of us protestants were taught to believe. So I will continue to ponder and occasionally think aloud.

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Summer Solstice

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Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. The day when we are blessed with the most light all year long. I love that the focus of the solstices is light not darkness. Today we celebrate the abundance of light and the life if brings to the earth. We give thanks for the first fruits of harvest and take pleasure in the warm days of summer. The focus is not on the return of the darkness but on appreciation of the light. In winter when the darkness is at its greatest, we celebrate the return of the light. We rejoice that light will always overcome the darkness.

We celebrated the Solstice with the alternative parents group I am a part of with a picnic and bubble extravaganza. (what better way to celebrate anything than to have laughing toddlers chase bubbles!) Here is Emma enjoying the occasion.

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Cultural Commentary

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A couple of fun things I came across that make a interesting points.

This was in today’s comics. I found it amusing as someone whose car is covered in bumper stickers…

Then I found this on Facebook. It reminded me of this editorial I had recently read in the Chicago Tribune.

In The ’60s, Students Conducted Sit-Ins…In 2007, We Make Facebook Groups!

A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more persons nonviolently occupying an area for protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. Sit-ins were first widely employed by Mahatma Gandhi in Indian independence movement and were later expanded on by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and others during the American Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, students used this method of protest during the student movements, such as the protests in Germany. The Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood used it successfully a full week to win community demands for low income housing investment at the Mckormick Theological Seminary.

In a sit-in, protesters usually seat themselves and remain seated until they are evicted, usually by force, or until their requests have been met. Sit-ins have been a highly successful form of protest because they cause disruption that draws attention to the protest and by proxy the protesters’ cause. The forced removal of protesters and sometimes the answer of non-violence with violence often arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators reaching their goal. Sit-ins usually occur indoors at businesses or government offices but they have also occurred in plazas, parks, and even streets.

A sit-in is similar to a sitdown strike. However, whereas a sit-in involves protesters, a sitdown strike involves striking workers occupying the area in which they would be working and refusing to leave so they can not be replaced with scabs. The sitdown strike was the precursor to the sit-in.

Sit-ins were an integral part of the non-violent strategy of civil disobedience that ultimately ended racial segregation in the United States (Wiki).

Today… Students’ main strategy to oppose certain decisions and change is to create a Facebook Group. How times have changed…

The personal element is gone. More people are reached through technology, but we are not forming communities that care for each other as we care for a cause. I can just click “Add Cause” to my Facebook or add a link to my blog, but I rarely gather with those who are passionate about actually doing something about those causes. That’s part of why I do my best to go to conferences and gatherings, it builds a more personal community. I can read all about debt relief and sign any number of petitions (and encourage all of you to do the same), but I think I will get a much wider perspective after I attend the JubileeUSA Grassroots Conference here in Chicago next week.

As much as I love blogging and online communities, being able to build relationships and share common passions is vital (and yes I’ve formed some great relationships from people I first met online). This whole issues reminded me on some of the lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar where Judas (from the afterlife) asks Jesus “why’d you choose such a backward time And such a strange land? If you’d come today You could have reached the whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.” Reaching the whole nation in one fell swoop wasn’t the point. The point was to build relationships with a group of committed followers who then could spread the message of hope of the Kingdom of God. Sure preaching and feeding 5000+ caused a stir and an emotional high for some, but it was less effective than the day to day wandering around with the disciples. That’s what we need more of these days imho.

Just some thoughts. And yes, I am completely aware of the irony of using the medium of a blog to say these things. But sometimes when the kid is already in bed and all the local coffee shops close at 4 PM, this is the only available community. (which brings up the issue of the potential for those with very restricted lives – stay-at-home-moms – to actually get involved in anything, but enough rambling for now…)

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Cultural Perspectives on Faith

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I was recently reminded of a faith encounter i had a number of years ago. When I was a sophomore in high school, my grandfather took the whole family skiing in Utah for Christmas. Being a Texas girl, that happened to be my first “White Christmas.” Since I had never skied before, I needed some sort of instruction. We discovered that there was a Mormon group in Park City that offered free private ski lessons to the handicapped. So taking full advantage of their missional outreach program, I signed up.

My ski instructor was a young college age woman who obviously thought that getting to ski all the time was a great way to fulfill her mission requirement (sounds good to me). She reminded me of most of the zealous Christian youth I knew – excited about her faith, convinced of exclusive rightness of her religion, and generally ignorant about what she actually believed. In our ski lift conversations it became obvious that she wasn’t a really intellectually aware. After discovering I was from Texas she asked me if there were actually cities in Texas and if everyone rode a horse to school. After assuring her that we do drive cars, she asked what books I like to read. I happened to be reading Thomas More’s Utopia for fun over break and started telling her about it. I made the mistake of mentioning the commentary I had read that claimed that the book influenced the founding of Mormonism. She took issue with that, serious issue. God gave them their faith, no human book could ever have influenced it. I was wrong, faith is from God not man. I dropped the conversation and we got back to my pathetic attempts to ski.

Looking back I know that I would have had the same reaction if someone had told me then that there was more of Plato than Patriarchs in my faith. I came from the camp that our 20th century versions of Christianity were the way the faith always had been and always should be practiced (not that such was always explicitly taught, just that the alternatives were never mentioned). To concede cultural influences would signify change over time. I’ve since gone through the process of accepting the subjective nature of interpretation, the necessity for faith, and the cultural influences on my faith. Such things no longer herald the advents of the immanent destruction of my faith’s foundation, but instead are fascinating avenues to be explored as I dig deeper into what I believe. But it scares some people to death. They react like the Mormon girl of the ski lift – denial and dismissal (and sometimes ridicule). It makes for difficult conversation. Not that I am any “better,” I just react differently at this point in my life.

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God, Missional Living, and Social Justice

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At our church retreat this past weekend, we explored our conceptions of God. During one small group discussion the topic wandered to how our view of God affects our affinity for personal piety and missional living. Jen mentioned that in a recent class on Spiritual Formation her classmates had shared what activities shape their spiritual lives. In ranking a list of spiritual practices, social justice consistently appeared at the bottom of nearly everyone’s lists. She had recently been reading Gary Haugen (IJM) who claims that God is a God of justice and that if we serve this God we will work for justice. Her question to the group was if God really is a God of justice then why is working for justice such a low priority for Christians? Who is getting it wrong?

There were of course more nuances to her question and I am reporting my perception of it as well, but it led to some good discussion. How we conceive of God – which attributes we deem most important, and which ones we ignore – has a huge affect on how we live. If we don’t think that God cares about the poor (or if such a thought never crosses our radar) then why should we as Christians think that caring for the poor is a spiritual act? If we see God as most concerned with our personal relationship with him, as opposed to God being most concerned about the oppressed that is going to affect how we live. If it is all about our relationship with God, then acts of personal piety (reading our bible, praying, holy living) become most important. But if God’s heart for the oppressed is focused on more then acts of justice (serving the poor, working for social change, lobbying to stop human rights violations) receive more attention. In the evangelical world that I am used to, the personal piety side has received the most attention often to the exclusion of justice issues. In fact, I’ve listened to sermons where the pastor said that God does not care about the poor and we should not be working to help them. But I’ve also heard that there are churches that focus so exclusively on justice issues that personal piety is ignored.

It would be easy to say that all that is needed is balance – equal doses of personal piety and justice – but I’m not convinced that is really the best approach. Neither approach should be ignored, but I continue to see more and more danger in the “it’s all about me” approach to faith. God spoke into cultures and communities, the message of hope is for the world. If we think that we are the most important thing to God, it is a lot harder to get beyond our individualism and help others. But if we focus on God’s compassion for the world, we will grow personally through the discipline of helping others. The personal piety has a place, but is something that I believe should be a natural result of our service to God and others and not the central focus of our faith.

The difficulty occurs in how to convey that message. Changing how we talk about God is a huge step. We also need to examine what cultural assumptions we bring to our interpretations of biblical texts. We can open people’s eyes to themes of justice and God’s compassion for the oppressed through the biblical narrative. Instead of seeing Ruth as the perfect example of the submissive and committed Christian wife (which has its own issues), we can see the sabbath practices that care for the poor being displayed.

But it has to be more than a matter of perspective. We need to stop living on the extremes. I know this approach will anger some, but I think we need to stop presenting everything as an all or nothing. Too often when faith groups talk about seeking justice they land on the “sell everything and give it to the poor” stance. We present the Shane Claibornes and Mother Teresas as our examples. And the choice becomes to either care and utterly and drastically change one’s lifestyle, or to do nothing at all. The choice is so extreme that most people give up without doing anything. So while I know that there is needed discussion as to whether one can really live the American Dream and truly be seeking justice, why would doing nothing be preferable to helping people do what they can where they can? Baby steps right? So instead of telling people how evil American Idol is and telling us that we are messed up for caring more about it than the number of troops who die in Iraq (all of which may be true), I’m going to support efforts like “Idol Gives Back” that helps raise awareness and gets people doing something.

And I know this post has rambled all over the place, but I think that changing the perception of the evangelical church from a “me” centered faith to a “God/other” centered faith is a necessary step. Its a huge step that means changing our perception of who God is and changing the way we live. Missional living should be the goal, but it needs to be presented in ways that are comprehensible and doable for the average church-goer.

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