the man behind the curtain

Sometimes I find that I have some of the most convoluted ways of coming up with ideas. Some of you who know me more personally probably assume that everything I think, write, say, plan, etc comes from a very logical, structured kind of background or way of thinking. Sadly, this is probably about as far from the truth as can be in many cases. I usually meander my way to something interesting from a topic that only has a glancing relevance to what I end up figuring out. For example, my topic of the day...

Poverty as Blessing -- Matt Ritchie
"I find myself wondering: how would our faith communities be different if, instead of emphasizing God's blessings in providing abundance, we talked about how God finds us in our places of poverty?"

Matt's post really started me thinking about finding God or letting God find me in the places where I am weak and vulnerable. I will never be able to find God by focusing on areas in which I feel strongest, and he is most likely never going to reach me there because I haven't left much room. Actually, I take that back... God could reach me wherever he darn well chose to reach me -- let's just say my attention would be most rapt when I am smacked full in the face with something I am too proud to admit I feel a certain level of inadequacy about. Oddly, even though we should know that God can point out every flaw and every strength, we continue to build up our facade which is held up by an assortment of hacked together beliefs, understandings, arguments, skills and experiences. All of this we keep neatly hidden behind our curtain which we think only God can pierce, and we show off the very hip, cool, and organized facade to everyone we meet in life. At this point is when trouble begins to brew...

The conversation starts off fairly simple - just two people talking about life. However, things suddenly start to turn towards spirituality and while you don't necessarily disagree 100% with what is being said, something doesn't sit right. You realize with great difficulty that the other person seems to know where you stand on a lot of things, but doesn't take the same position and so you jump into action. You start to defend some of your positions and ideals which you feel are being disrespected, only to find you are parried with more information than you've ever had to cope with in a response and none of it truly disrespectful. Each new point in the conversation leads to more frustration with the other person and yourself, it feels like the walls are falling in on you and no matter how fast you react and repair the facade you are losing a battle with yourself.

You see, the other person has pierced through and seen the man behind the curtain, the one scrambling to reinforce the set on stage which is threatening to fall backwards on top of him. It seems no matter how many times you insist they "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," they continue to find all the weak spots. The moment they peeked behind the curtain, the defense began and the explanations flew wildly so as to explain the reason behind this support beam, that two-by-four, those guide wires, and these patchwork grouping of nails. Only each time a piece of the kludgy framework is defended, you realize how shoddy and inadequate it really is, but you cannot admit you were misguided or uninformed. By now both you and your conversation partner have noticed the creaking sounds, and you are faced with a choice: to listen to this person a bit more and perhaps learn something new which could help you firm up your life and eliminate the need for the curtain; or defiantly stick to your guns and hope you can shore up ye olde facade that oddly seems a bit less lustrous as it was about 20 minutes ago.

So ask yourself, are you certain of your motives and mindset when you are conversing with someone? Are you truly listening, or are you scrambling for a defensive strategy? Personally, I've tried to cut back on grinding my axe and fortifying my ideals behind the scenes, I say let it all topple... its too much work trying to keep up appearances for the sake of someone else's pristine picture of Christianity, or my own for that matter. Why do we feel the need to "keep up with the Joneses" with our faith when in reality we are supposed to be keeping up with Jesus?

I suppose the weeks of infrequent blogging have caught up with, sorry if its feels/reads like a bit of a rant...

not dead, just busy

Work calls, and I answer... 'cause they pay me! However, I also do it because its fun and I enjoy it. So while I am away and working into the wee hours, my blogging will be sparse and short.

Check out this post, very appropriate...
Youth Ministers Only... -- Big Mike Lewis

Oh, and enjoy the last bit of summer!
(I'm still on that education schedule, Claire being a teacher and all)

christian angst poetry

Don't let the title fool you, I am not really poking fun at this article. I actually found it rather interesting, and from my past experiences very accurate.

Untitled Rant by Daniel Walter

sometimes it takes a book

An argument arose among them as to which of them would be the greatest. But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, brought a little child to his side, and said to them, "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great."

John responded, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us." But Jesus said to him, "Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you."

As the time drew near for his ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and on their way they entered a Samaritan village to make arrangements for Him. But they were turned away, because when the Samaritans learned that his destination was Jerusalem, they refused to have anything to do with Jesus. When James and John heard about it, they said to Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" Jesus turned and rebuked them: "Of course not!" So they traveled on to another village.

-- Luke 9:46-56 (blended translation)

Now that you've read that, go back and read it again -- only this time try to ignore the paragraph breaks and let the whole interaction play out in your mind as a singular event where everything there is somehow related.

Ok, did you really read it again? Catch anything new this time? How about if we frame up the passage with some background topics, and then go back and read it again? This time, before you read it, think about all the different Christian denominations you've ever experienced and how they interact with or view each other. Then take a step back mentally, and think about your experience as a Christian and how the church communities you've been a part of have interacted with the local community, other religions, and the world in general (and when I say interact, I include action/inaction, opinions, doctrines, etc). Now, read it again and really soak it up. Anything jump out at you?

I cannot fully understand how or why, but while I was re-reading a book, a particular part suddenly brought to mind this passage of scripture. After reading through it a few times, I actually find that it is a great example of how Jesus dealt with people outside of his immediate sphere of influence. I mean think about it, if the guy who was casting out demons in Jesus' name was out for personal fame and glory, do you really think it would work? It wasn't really the disciples' place to stop the guy, they apparently didn't know his motivations or his faith, they just didn't want someone who wasn't in their circle touting Jesus. It's all right there on the page, Jesus is smacking these guys around trying to get them to understand that it's not about fame, glory, popularity, or being with the "in" group and that his message and teachings were not to be restricted to particular groups. I often wonder if Jesus was bald by the end of his ministry, because reading through passages like these make me wonder how he would have had the patience to not smack himself in the forehead and pull his hair out everytime he had to make his point 3 times and have his disciples still not fully understand...

Perhaps more on this later...

unplug, recharge, blog

As you may have noticed, the blog seems to be lacking fresh content as of late. Honestly, there is no excuse other than lack of interesting thoughts and motivation. Hopefully this weekend or perhaps next week I will find something interesting to blog about. The other obvious thing of note, would be the failure of my experimental blog post from last week. Apparently, I have no readers with burning questions or relatively few readers at the moment; take your pick, it's summer so anything is within the realm of possibilities.

While work keeps me busy for the rest of August and possibly half of September, I will do my best to maintain my sanity, humor, relative optimism, and health until I can grab some quality quiet time to think. Or I could be going about things completely backwards, we will see. Perhaps it's time for an experiment of a different kind....