On Learning

                I have been doing a lot of reading and receiving of information as of late. I have always loved to read, but God has been leading me down some interesting paths of reading lately. I have been confused though because I am one who likes to know that everything I am reading and doing is coming into a coherent pattern or way of belief. I am okay with reading in a scatter-shot manner if God wishes me to, but only if I get to define what that will mean. I know it is backwards; but there it is.

                As I continue down this journey of reading and following the rabbit trail that is before me, I feel as if God is preparing me to enter into the blogging community in a more intentional manner. Many of you know my former blog and what I once wrote. It was very formative for me spiritually, and for making me a writer. However, having gone back to graduate school and facing a personal spiritual journey that has taken me down some steep terrain knocked the wind out of the sails and I just have not gotten back to what I was doing. My ship now has a deeper rudder, the draft is shallow and the wind is picking up.

                The thing about my kind of writer’s life that is so maddening, yet engaging, is that nothing really is off limits for observation. I remember angry e-mails from readers telling me to “focus your thoughts” and “I cannot follow you because I cannot figure out your mind”. I am a philosopher, theologian, teacher, preacher and all around provocateur, and I intend to keep it that way. In this I may have more of a journalistic mind, but I do not want to write what is necessarily popular, or even right. My desire is to provoke thought, engage with that thought, and bring it out into the world and see how it plays out. I want to live in the tension of this life, this modern, post-modern, crazy-ass life. It will surely have the up’s and the downs, it will surely be boring, and once in a while fascinating. If it brings transformation, I have reached what I hope to do.  

                My hope in all of this is to bring coherence to my worldview, and hopefully be able to bring you along in that quest. I will try to post a few times a week. It may be simple links to good writing I have found, or it may be something more deep and personal. What it will be is a journey, and often times it is the journey that tells us the most about the destination we seek. Once we land at the location we seek we will hopefully be wiser and stronger than we were before. So let us begin as all good stories do. Once upon a time…

Meaning and Chaos...

It is a wonderful thing to be born, to see a life begin. I have had the pleasure of being with friends as new life has sprung forth, and I have seen life come to an end in dignified and honorable ways. 

Life, as it begins, is story telling. How much do we celebrate as a little one begins to take these random sounds and tidbits of information and transform them into syllables. Da, Ma, La...the list goes on, each one a little celebration of life, and the meaning that is being expressed by the little one gets more vehement and packed with meaning. Soon, the syllables turn to short words, then the short words to longer ones, the longer ones into sentences and so forth. Thus the world finds expression in the mind, heart and tongue of a precious, precocious and curious child. 

We have had a birth in our family today. I am now an Uncle for a beautiful young man whom I cannot wait to meet. I have prayed for his mom and I rejoiced as I got the call that all was well. Over the coming weeks and months he will begin to place meaning on things, and find his way forward. What will that way forward be?

I am watching as another person's life on this world comes to a close. One could easily say that it is tragic that her life is ending just as her kids life is beginning. I am sure that at times she might agree. But, she knows that her life is not her own, and that life is given, and life is taken away. I have also just been told a relative whom I adore is loosing his life by small degrees. Each day a new memory or function faces the reality that it could be lost. He is learning what we all should be living now that all is a gift, all is grace. Life is grace, not race. 

We spend so much time as humans trying to define what our world looks like. From the beginning we look at the world as a subject to be mastered. We look to ourselves, and other flawed humans to find meaning for those first syllables as we place them into words. We consider the world subjectively. God does not ask us to look at the world this way, He asks us to look at the world reflectively. The world we live in, the life we live, the people we meet are all reflections of our creator. Some people would say we are a pale reflection because we are "fallen". While this is true and worthy of discussion, I believe the reflection of the creator shines brighter than the sun in all of us. His presence and glory is felt in waking up in the morning, in going to bed at night. His presence is felt in the warm embrace of a sleepy puppy, or watching the sun rise over the mountains. He is felt, and reflected back to us, in every day life. 

Our life is a masterful story. We can choose to let our story tell of a subjective life...or we can allow our story to reflect the master weaver whom we love, and who loves us in such a fashion we can never fully fathom. As our life is weaved and our story is told, we impact the lives of others. We cannot life in this world and have no impact. What we say and what we do is one more piece of fiber for the life of another. 

Life is a seamless garment of praise. Where one life ends, another life begins. As one saint closes her eyes for a final time, a baby opens his for the first. Our role in life is to shepherd this great gift of life, and live with eyes wide open to the reflection of the Glory of God and His deep, passionate, love for His children. As Christians, our role in this world is not to build a church building and bid people come. Our role, is to be stewards and shepherds of the mystery that we call life. As life comes into the world we rejoice, and as a life leaves this world only to open their eyes into the life of eternity, we rejoice. The Christian life is a witness to hope and love. There are no other concepts, no other ideas worth even contemplating if we do not have these two things. 

~Selah