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Month: August 2005

faith without passion?

faith without passion?

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Faith without passion …

… is like playing soccer without the ball. You may go through all the motions, but you don’t really accomplish anything and it’s not much fun!

Faith without passion …

… is like marriage without love. All form and no substance. It may serve a purpose — for maintaining some kind of social stability and keeping people out of trouble, but has no depth or intimacy or life … or satisfaction.

Faith without passion …

… is demeaning to God. If God is God — the one whose breath is the source of life, whose power and wisdom and glory are beyond imagination, whose grace and mercy and love seek and save and lift up a wandering and broken humanity — how can we relate to this God with indifference, with a shrug of the shoulders or a nod of acknowledgment … or a lukewarm faith?

Faith without passion …

… is an oxymoron, because faith is passion!

grief

grief

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Grief …

Grief takes something from us that can never be regained. We cannot get it back … but nevertheless what we do have is enough. We have Jesus.

Jesus is with us … and that is enough.

Faith is not magical. We do not invoke the name of Jesus and expect everything to bounce our way. Faith is mystical. Jesus is with us, at all times, in all circumstances, in this very moment … and forever. And when Jesus is with us, it is not that everything will be okay … it is that everything is okay!

save the arctic national wildlife refuge!

save the arctic national wildlife refuge!

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Read the article posted by Matthew Gilbert, a Gwich’in himself. (NRDC Action Fund Blog: Why is drilling the Arctic Refuge wrong?) Here’s an excerpt:

The fact that it’s even a question whether we should drill in a pristine place like the refuge, the breeding grounds of Polar Bears, Porcupine Caribou Herd, and many bird species, is an ethical travesty of our time …

The Arctic Refuge should not only be protected for its natural value, but also for its value to the Gwich’in. The Porcupine Caribou Herd calves in the Arctic Refuge and is very sensitive to humans. Establishing oil rigs, roads, drill pads, and other industrial additions will drive animals out, change their migration routes, and harm the land.

Gwich’in who hunt the Porcupine Caribou Herd will be affected in more ways than one. We implement products of the Porcupine Caribou Herd in every area of our lives; warm skin clothes, ivory-tools, arrowheads, and traditional dresses. Gwich’in are extremely efficient with every animal we kill; we use a dead animal in the utmost efficient way. So when we harvest even one caribou, it provides us with a host of things used to survive and flourish.

If the Gwich’in lose the refuge they lose their identity. Without the caribou the Gwich’in will have a harder time making ends meet or move into the cities. So it is not only environmental doom that industry would bring to the Gwich’in Nation but also social doom. The refuge needs to be protected! Please join the Gwich’in in our fight to protect a way of life older than all the monumental wonders of the world. Protect a critical relationship that the Gwich’in have maintained with the caribou for nearly 20,000 years.

For thirty years and more, the American people have said “No” to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How many times do we have to say “No”?

This choice will be a test of our national character. Will we choose a one-time short term energy “fix” at the cost of an irreplaceable natural wonder and a whole way of life? Or will we take a longer and saner and humbler point of view, recognizing that the value of this land rests not merely in what it can produce, but in what it is?

We need to keep the oil companies out of the Refuge for the sake of the Gwich’in, for the sake of the caribou … and for our own sake. For the sake of our own spiritual well-being we need to set limits on our gluttony, our greed, our hubris, and leave some things alone!

a moral imperative for victims?

a moral imperative for victims?

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When hateful people produce lasting hatred in us … hate wins. When violent people make us violent … violence wins. When cruel people leave us with nothing but a burning desire for revenge in our minds and hearts … cruelty wins. When evil done to us gives birth to evil done by us … evil wins.

As I drove to work this morning, I listened to reports on NPR of the Israeli pullout from the Gaza strip. I heard interviews with militant Palestinians who credited the pullout to the armed resistance alone, giving no credit to the political process, showing no support for the diplomatic efforts of their own leadership, calling only for more violence to oust Israel from the West Bank as well. It was most disheartening.

It was disheartening to see once more that steps toward peace — baby steps though they may be — do so little (do nothing!) to soften the hardened and entrenched hatred of one people for another, do so little (do nothing?) to change the tide of history and move people toward rapprochement.

Is there a moral imperative for victims? Or does their victimization “excuse” whatever choices they may make? Can we expect the victim of oppression to show grace and mercy and restraint and maybe even love to the oppressor? Or is that a preposterous expectation?

There can be no shalom until victimizer and victim alike are set free from the cycle of oppression. There can be no shalom until the oppressors humble themselves before God and until the oppressed humble themselves before God. There can be no shalom until God does it … and until we are ready to let God do it!

i never really liked frank sinatra

i never really liked frank sinatra

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I was a generation too late to be much exposed to the music of Frank Sinatra, but I have heard enough and seen enough to know that I don’t like it. Sinatra’s style and demeanor evoke an image that is antithetical to values I hold especially dear. He is about the big city; I love open spaces. He is about life in the fast lane; I crave a life filled with energy and passion and excitement — a fast life, but a life traveling down an entirely different road! He has the swagger; I admire a man — or a woman — who combines bold conviction with a gentle manner. He is about doing it “my way;” and I …

Well … okay … I’m about doing it “my way” too! Who isn’t? Who isn’t? Some of us do it by bullying; some of us do it by withdrawing; some of us do it by plotting; some of us do it by careful attention to detail; some of us do it by putting a price on our affections … but all of us try to fashion a world that works the way we want it to work. My vision of the “way things should” may be virtuous or it may be scandalous, but in any case, what is important to me is that it be my vision.

Jesus said, If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself …

What does it mean that in losing ourselves that we find ourselves? What does it mean that in taking up a cross, we find life? It is truly way out there, on the frontier of human experience, but maybe you have caught a glimpse, maybe you have had a taste … of what it is, even for a moment, to say … “your way.” Of how saying that and meaning it does not diminish you one little bit, but suddenly enlarges you in strange and wondrous ways.

And more than that, makes you realize it’s not about “you” at all, but about being an “us” … not about finding yourself, but about finding ourselves. About losing yourself, and finding ourself … in love.

Your way …

I never really liked Frank Sinatra. But he was a “you,” too.

“million dollar baby”

“million dollar baby”

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My daughter’s boyfriend had us all watch “Million Dollar Baby” the other night. It was a good movie — well-made, engrossing, creative, understated. It conveyed powerful emotions with spare action and spare dialogue. I enjoyed watching the movie — and I am no fan of boxing — but I didn’t like the ending.

WARNING: STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE AND DON’T WANT ME TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU!

What does give a life value?
When is suffering no longer redemptive or no longer redeemable?
When is a life no longer worth living?

I grant that I know nothing of what it is like to be in a body like Maggie’s … a body useless and wasting away. And I know nothing of being in Frankie’s position … seeing the one I dearly love in that powerless and humiliating state. But suicide for the one, assisting suicide for the other, seem too easy and even selfish. The movie creates a great deal of sympathy for that choice, paints it as a redemptive choice — letting Maggie “go out” while she has it all, instead of letting her linger and lose everything.

But what is the “everything” she risks losing? Her success, the achievement of her life’s dream? But it seems to me that the most valuable thing she gains in the course of the film is Frankie’s love. She gains a father. He gains a daughter. He grieves because she asks him to let her go. But is it not this love itself that gives her life value? That love continues, loving her always and still as she is … forever. Loving her because she is.

And that is what God’s love is like, too. Loving us as we are, just because we are. At her best, Maggie showed the strength and beauty of her spirit, her loyalty, her faith … turning down a contract with a rival manager to stay with Frank, turning away her heartless and greed-crazed family members, not letting herself be consumed with self-pity.

Would it not be fitting if Maggie’s final act of strength and beauty and loyalty and faith were to entrust herself to God — as long as she has breath, to allow Frankie to love her and be loved by her — to live in joy even in the presence of suffering for both of them, to live with courage and will and hope in the face of her greatest challenger?

As I watched the movie, I too was filled with grief at her loss, at our loss of her grace and fire and passionate physicality. But I wanted her to live, to win this last fight, not concede, to reveal to us the real depth and strength of her character. And I wanted Frankie to say “No” and stand by it, to tell her that her life was still valuable, that he loved her and that love made her life valuable, that she has not lost and will not lose anything that matters!

i’m back

i’m back

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I’m back … after twenty-six days of vacation, 5300 miles on the road, passing through eighteen states and two provinces, time shared with many, many friends and dear family members, time in boats on Lake Superior, on Lake Huron, and on the Atlantic Ocean. It was glorious! I am filled up once more with deep wonder at the grandeur of what God has fashioned and the extraordinary blessing of being allowed to enjoy it.

And my question today is this: which is more “real” — home and work, or vacation?!

Of course, both are real. Human life is about being productive, about “making a living” and about “making a difference.” It is about providing and contributing and about doing something worthwhile with the heart and brain and limbs God has given you. We are in some sense measured by what we have done … for the sake of those who depend on us, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of the kingdom.

But I am convinced that much of what God intends for us is pure joy! … that we are given life and breath not merely to be productive, but to see and hear and taste and feel and smell some small part of all the wonders and delights and surprises to be found in the world God made and called good … that life is being as well as doing, being alive in the world and being alive to the world, breathing deeply of all that is around us and giving God thanks.

I have breathed deeply … and today I give God thanks!