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a view through the trees

a view through the trees

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ocean view through the trees on Monhegan Island

I like this photograph.

It is different from most of my other Monhegan photos — no stunning cliffs rising from the sea, no waves exploding on the rocks guarding the shoreline, no colorful lilies or picturesque lighthouses or interesting people — just this view through the trees.

Is it a photograph of the sea or is the sea just the background? Is our attention drawn by the dead tree in the foreground or do we see past the tree? Is it the dark lines of the dead tree or the bold greens of the living trees or orange of the lichen-covered rocks, the expansive sea in the distance or the intimate path in the near corner, that makes this photograph beautiful?

It is all these things. It is the way all the pieces of the photograph “fit” together and don’t fit together. It is the juxtaposition of life and death, of soft and hard, of light and dark, of sharp and smooth, of intimacy and immensity, that makes this photograph engaging … and beautiful. It is beautiful because it shows something real, this particular piece of earth as it is, as it has become, not something put together or composed by the artist, but something already there. Here is the artistry … of God: death and life, immediacy and transcendence, something that exists wholly oblivious to and careless of me, and yet of which, when I am present and when I pay attention, I am a part.

This is what we are like, too — products of God’s artistry, a strange juxtaposition of the heavenly and the mundane, full of contradictions, but beautiful as we are, beautiful because we are, beautiful because we are from God.

making sense, moving forward

making sense, moving forward

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We live in a world that is so different from the world of the generations that have preceded us. The pace of change is dizzying. The amount of accessible — unavoidably accessible! — information is overwhelming. We bear the burden of knowing too much, almost more than we can bear to know. It is not only the problems of family and community and region that weigh on our hearts, but the problems of a whole world: famine and disease and natural disaster, war and oppression and unabashed genocide, injustice and mistrust and entrenched hatred. We know so much about the world and about the people who fill it, so much more about so many more people, so many people so different from us as we are so different from them — different traditions, different dreams, different perceptions, different values, different beliefs.

How do we make sense of this world? How do we stretch minds and hearts to “fit” all the information, all the people, in a way that allows us to move forward with eyes and ears still open? As believers, how do we reconcile ourselves and our faith to diverging and even openly hostile points of view?

Some do it by holding tightly to received traditions, by clinging to a clearly defined spiritual calculus that distinguishes between those who are right and those who are wrong, by subscribing to a parochial religious worldview that leaves most of humanity on the outside. In the face of a world full of questions, these folks survive by adopting a faith full of ready answers.

Others do it by redefining “truth” and “righteousness” and “salvation:” what matters is what is true for you, what is right is what allows us to co-exist, salvation is avoidance of conflict. In the face of a world full of questions, these folks survive by believing there really aren’t any answers.

But is there a third option? Is there a way for believers other than strict fundamentalism or uncritical pluralism? Can we make sense of this world without ignoring the majority of the facts? Can we move forward without abandoning our loyalty to a personal God? We need a third way, because the church is being torn apart, dangerously polarized, torn apart by people who are scared, scared of losing their faith, scared of losing their lives, polarized by people scared of obsolescence, scared of irrelevance, scared of being marginalized, scared of losing their souls.

I believe there is a third way. The first two ways have one important feature in common: fear … fear of losing, fear of criticism, fear of being wrong, fear of being irrelevant, fear of the daunting and dizzying and befuddling and overwhelming world in which we live! And the natural response to fear is … fight or flight! Taking control of a situation that is out of control by removing myself or by arming myself. “Solving” the threatening situation by taking a unilateral course of action. But, as believers, when we act unilaterally, when we “take control” — one way or another, we leave God out. We discover a third way when we let God in, when we listen — really listen — to God, instead of deciding for ourselves what we must do to survive and to “protect” the faith!

Perfect love drives out fear.

Love is the third way! Loving God with all your soul and all your mind and all your strength … and loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

God is not a cipher! God is not whatever we think God is or whatever we want God to be! God is a particular being, with a distinctive character and distinctive intentions. It is possible for us to be right about what we think we know of God, and it is possble for us to be utterly wrong about what we think we know of God! We must seek God, listen to God, wait for God, not pretend we already know exactly what God wants, or that we can never know what God wants. Our task is not to use God, as a war club or a slogan, but to love God.

In the same way, your neighbor is not a cipher, but a person, a person who deserves to be loved. Your primary task is not to defeat your neighbor, protect yourself from your neighbor, convert your neighbor, enlighten your neighbor, but to love your neighbor. Love your neighbor!

Don’t be scared! Love God and trust God to love you. In the face of a world full of questions, you don’t have to have all the answers … but you know there are answers!

You don’t have to fight or run away. You can move forward, with confidence in God, with hope for the future, with readiness to love your neighbor who is so very different from you, but equally loved by God. As believers, we take our cue from God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, a God of love, a God of mercy, a God of grace. We love, we show mercy, we extend grace.

We don’t need to take control. We leave that to God. We know our job …

be patient

be patient

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Be patient …

Do not let the burden of the enormous task ahead of you overwhelm you and debilitate you. Yours is not the responsibility of the end result, but only of the next step. Do what you can, what God has equipped you to do. Do that faithfully, one step, one piece, at a time, and God will make of it something good.

Do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. And the God who walks with you today will be there to walk with you tomorrow, whatever tomorrow brings …

no excuses

no excuses

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There are no excuses, only choices.

I shared that observation with our church family this last Sunday as part of the report given by our mission trip team. We had just returned from eleven days in West Virginia — we, being four adults and six high school students. That observation was underlined once more for me by what I saw and by what we did. We spent five days painting and repairing a home in a town in southwest West Virginia and spent several more days enjoying the West Virginia mountains and the challenge of play in the mountains.

One of our students, limited from birth by cerebral palsy, joined several of us in leaping ten feet from the top of a rock into the waters of the New River. He did not let his physical limitatations provide him an excuse, but did what he very much wanted to do!

Another student, skeptical of camping and her ability to “survive” the rigors of rafting and rock climbing and hard work, did just fine. She did not stay home; she did not hang back; she did not excuse herself from engaging these new experiences, but chose to go over the edge into the unknown … quite literally!

I have said many times to my own children that family history or genetic history may provide a reason or an explanation for certain behaviors, but not an excuse. We make choices. We do not choose what we are or what befalls us, but we do choose what we will do with what we have and how we will respond to what befalls us.

Too many of us are limited by our own lack of vision, our own lack of courage … our own lack of faith. Don’t give up! Don’t beat yourself! Embrace life and all its possibilities! Embrace God and all God is ready to do for you and with you!

good news

good news

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televisionI do not watch television because the world on the screen is not the world I want to live in. It is not the real world, but if I spend enough time watching it I know I will forget that.

A thought-provoking quote from Barbara Brown Taylor. The entire article from which this quote is taken (What’s new?) is worth reading, to provoke thought and to encourage us believers to keep on doing evangelism, telling good news in a world overfilled with bad news, telling stories of human kindness and divine grace.

so what do i think of the da vinci code?

so what do i think of the da vinci code?

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Not much.

Which means both that I don’t think much of it, and that I don’t think much about it. I have neither seen the movie nor read the book, though I’ve read reviews and talked with folks who have. I do not feel the same sense of threat that some Christians and Christian organizations seem to. I feel no need to make a reply to the assertions of The Da Vinci Code. I believe without reservation that truth will outlast any passing fancy or cultural buzz.

I did not see The Passion of the Christ for the same reasons. In that instance, too, I felt that the fanciful (and largely self-serving) fabrications of one man’s imagination did not merit serious debate. The story itself — the story of the God who came among us and shared our common lot — holds far more wonder, far more mystery, far more beauty, than any “revised version.” The story does not re-telling. It needs re-hearing!

Both the recently discovered Gospel of Judas and The Da Vinci Code appeal to human pride, our fondness for being among the “insiders,” for being numbered among those “in the know.” We like to think the truth is so complex, so impenetrable, that only the elite few (including ourselves, of course) can discover its secrets. A story so simple as a God who loves us completely and desires nothing more and nothing less than our complete love in return may not excite the book publishers or movie producers, but to me, it is far more compelling and simply rings true.

For another well-written take on the gnostic tendencies of The Da Vinci Code, see Novel faiths, an editorial column in the May 16, 2006 issue of The Christian Century.

fighting terror … a different way

fighting terror … a different way

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“I realize now how precious life is,” said Anthony Aversano, whose father, Louis, was killed in the World Trade Center. “How I fight the terror in me today is to live my life well.”

That quote comes from a Los Angeles Times account of the witnesses called yesterday by the defense team for Zacarias Moussaoui. Each of the six witnesses provides powerful personal testimony of a journey from grief to forgiveness, from fear to faith, of living the truth of Paul’s admonition in the letter to the Romans: Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good. They give me hope!

The article begins this way:

Defense attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday presented their own group of Sept. 11 victims, whose message of forgiveness was strikingly different from what had been heard in the courtroom so far.

None of the half-dozen defense witnesses — parents who lost children, a wife missing her husband, a son without a father — was asked whether the jury should spare the life of the admitted Al Qaeda terrorist. They spoke instead of the changes in their lives over the last 4 1/2 years and their refusal to, as one put it, “get caught up in a whirlpool of frustration and sadness and anger.”

Whereas family members testifying for the government had described broken lives and monumental despair, those called by the defense said they were finding ways to move past their grief …

Read the entire article: Families of 9/11 Victims Testify for Moussaoui, Los Angeles Times

william sloane coffin

william sloane coffin

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The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. died yesterday. Rev. Coffin was university chaplain during my time at Yale, and many years later has won my admiration as a genuine person of faith and a powerful voice for truth and justice and peace — God’s truth, God’s justice, God’s peace. The stories told about him and the stories told by him (see Credo, a collection of quotations and excerpts from his writing) have prompted me to do some serious re-examination of my self-understanding as a minister of the gospel.

A year ago, Yale Divinity School brought together Rev. Coffin and some four hundred of his friends, colleagues, and students to celebrate “The Public Witness and Ministry of William Sloane Coffin, Jr.” Here is an excerpt of the remarks given by Rev. Coffin at that event. I strongly suggest that you click on the link at the end of the excerpt and read the whole of his address! As Jesus’ followers and as Jesus’ church, we need to listen carefully to this voice of wisdom and courage and faithfulness.

Arthur Miller, of blessed memory, once wrote “I could not imagine a theater worth my time that did not want to change the world.”

I feel the same way about religious faith; it should want to change the world. The “blood-dimmed tide” loosed in the last century claimed more lives than all wars in all previous centuries, and the present century is filled with violence and cruelty. We seem more intent on fighting God’s will than doing God’s will. Therefore, the most urgent religious question is not ‘What must I do to be saved?” but rather “What must we all do to save God’s imperiled planet?”

Spirituality takes various forms. In many faiths some are very profound while others, particularly these days, appear to be a mile wide and one inch deep. Urgently needed for our time is a politically engaged spirituality.

I believe Christianity is a worldview that undergirds all progressive thought and action. The Christian church doesn’t have a social ethic as much as it is a social ethic, called to respond to biblical mandates like truth-telling, confronting injustice and pursuing peace. What is so heart-breaking is that, in a world of pain crying out for change, so many American churches today are basically down to management and therapy.

A politically engaged spirituality does not call for theological sledgehammers bludgeoning people into rigid orthodoxy. Nor does it mean using scriptural language as an illegitimate shortcut to conclusions, thereby avoiding ethical deliberation. We have constantly to be aware of hard choices informed by the combination of circumstances and conscience. We insult ourselves by leaving complexities unexamined. But never must we become so cautious as to be moral failures …

Read the rest of Rev. Coffin’s address.