becoming pastoral

This week I wrote an article for Eston College’s “Life Express!” news and blog website.  I’m glad I did.  I’ve found that through writing I’m able to better process and reflect on what’s going on in my life. 

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Click the picture below to read: “Becoming Pastoral”

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Last week I also had the opportunity to sit down with a few people and hear their stories.  It’s an honour to be invited to walk alongside you, and I don’t take the role lightly!  It’s also been very encouraging to see how many of you are growing and able to articulate how you see God at work in your faith and your life.  As a pastor, that’s a great comfort… it shows me that you’re learning to be attentive to the ways God moves—recognizing the nuance and beauty with which He weaves our life stories together.  It’s my prayer for all of us that we continue to learn how to pay attention.  Often this means slowing down.  In this day and age we’ve become experts at filling our time, at staying busy, at always being connected.  Sometimes we can even adopt a strange sort of guilt when it comes to taking time for ourselves, for rest. That’s not quite right!  It’s also the reason I don’t carry a cell phone.


But part of maturing in our faith means cutting through that busyness (even busyness for God or for ministry) and finding rest and learning to listen to God’s voice in stillness.  My hope is, at some point, to teach on spiritual disciplines: one of which is solitude. 


So let’s be faithful to the good work, that God calls us to…but let’s not become so consumed that we are incapable of also taking the time for stillness and rest.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." 

 - Matthew 11:28-30 The Message (MSG)

the whole sweep

One of biggest changes that college wrought in me was a new perspective on my faith.  There’s this phrase C.S. Lewis uses where he thinks of our imaginations being “baptized”, that is that our faculties—our hearts, minds, spirits, what have you—are enlarged in order to better experience or understand or take in that which we were before unaware of.  My imagination was enlarged in an attempt to grapple (not fully understand mind you, but to witness and acknowledge) the vastness of God: his transcendence, his immanence, his humanity in Christ, his mystery in Spirit.  That was day 1: Theology I, actually.  And it was onward and upward from there. 

I mentioned once before that I’ve been reading Luci Shaw’s Breath for the Bones.  At one point she’s talking about journal-keeping, and how when we re-read our journals it’s like taking a helicopter ride back over a landscape where before we had only walked or hiked.  At the time we saw only the particulars, the individual ups and downs of the experience.  In reflective hindsight we see the whole scope of the thing, be it a year or a decade; and we can get a sense of the lay of the land, so to speak.  Spiritually this can be really helpful, for so often in the day to day we miss out on the overall theme.  We can’t see the forest through the trees.

This idea of looking at life by the small blips or by the vast panorama can come into play in how we read the Bible.  I know for myself, one of the things which Eston encouraged in me was to read whole books in one sitting.  I seldom actually did this, but the value was not lost on me: in reading the whole of say, Ephesians, or John, we can see how the whole thing works.  Now we might not dissect and analyse the thing as we’re doing so…and that’s perfectly alright!  For that tendency to study the text should not, I think, come before first reading the text: hearing it as a Story.  Getting into the lives of the characters, seeing how they went about working out their relationships to God…how God was working out making himself known to them.  We let the text work on us.

I like how Eugene Peterson puts it in his introduction to 1 & 2 Samuel in The Message: 

The biblical way is not so much to present us with a moral code and tell us “Live up to this”; nor is it to set out a system of doctrine and say, “Think like this and you will live well.”  The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, “Live into this.  This is what it looks like to be human; this is what is involved in entering and maturing as human beings.”  We do violence to the biblical revelation when we “use” it for what we can get out of it or what we think will provide color and spice to our otherwise bland lives.  That results in a kind of “boutique spirituality”—God as decoration, God as enhancement.  The Samuel narrative will not allow that.  In the reading, as we submit our lives to what we read, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but to see our stories in God’s.  God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

Such reading will necessarily be a prayerful reading—a God-listening, God-answering reading.

I love that.  And I feel drawn back into that world that I discovered in those years at Eston.  For they encouraged us in that same way…not to see God as an object to be studied, but as the Subject within whom we find love and forgiveness and wholeness again.

So, I’m on a mission to read in wholes.  And what I love is that this requires imagination-living.  Not that we’re making things up!  But we need our imaginations baptized if we’re to be able to see our day to day lives, and our day to day reading of Scripture as part of something bigger.

This morning I happened upon a video which is what first enticed me to write some of these thoughts down:

N.T.Wright "The whole sweep of Scripture" from Rodica on Vimeo.

Favourite line:  “Frequently and thoroughly!”

So may you see whatever is on your plate today as a part of the bigger story of your life.  May you know that no matter how difficult things might seem, that there is One who knows you, who feels your pain, and wants to guide you through it.  And may you read not with the intention of mining out some small particular for personal pleasure, but may you find yourself immersed in God’s goodness as you are “swept along” by the Story.

being and doing

Had these thoughts brewing for awhile…

   Life is about who we are, not just about what we do.  And who we are, though heavily made up of what we do, is also more than just the sum total of what we manage to accomplish with ourselves. 

   What I do speaks to who I am.  My job fulfills an aspect of who I am: it fulfills a healthy desire and need to work.  Work for my food, work for the sustenance and provision of my family.   That is what I am given for my work: monetary allotment which is intended to relate to the value, quality and difficulty of the work. 

   And yet work is much more than that.  There is something good in and of work itself.  It has intrinsic value, whatever the vocation or location, regardless of pay or not.  We are designed to work.  We find this in the Genesis accounts where God gives Adam and Eve the task of tending to Eden, to naming the animals, for exercising healthy dominion over the land and its creatures.  There is good work set before us.  It fulfills us in some fashion.  It should.

   Yet we so often sever work as not speaking to our being.  We lop off the what we do from the who we are—or we dangerously enmesh the two: we are only what we do or accomplish.  The first disintegrates our lives, fragmenting our experience into compartments.  The second sees no distinction at all: it is these people who, should they lose their jobs entirely border on suicidal tendencies.  “There’s nothing left to live for.  That job was all I had.  It was who I was.”  Both extremes, I think, can be dangerous.

   Instead of thinking of who we are and what we do, the being and the doing, as distinct parts of ourselves we need to see them as part of the process of understanding who we are as whole people.  I act out of who I am, and what I do also shapes who I will become.  An illustration that might help us here is that of an upward moving spiral.  Are being impacts our doing, and our doing speaks to our being, yet there is also progression: we are moving forward, growing older, changing, learning.

   In our Spiritual Theology class at College, Lauren introduced us to Parker Palmer and the idea that “we live our way into a new way of thinking, we don’t think our way into a new way of living.” 

   Living is both: it’s the doing and the being.  It’s finding that they are not distinct aspects of myself, but part of a whole.  Biblically we find that the doing and being are wound together in one another.  This where we often have trouble with the Book of James: we see so much of it as doing, seemingly apart from the being: from the work of Christ in our lives who has saved us.  But James is not advocating for salvation by works: his point is that because of the work done in our hearts, because of how we’ve been changed—live it!  If you’re not living it then you haven’t seemingly changed.  It should make a difference.

   Jesus transforms lives.  He transforms the living: both the being and the doing.  Who we are and what we are about.  He reminds me that I am more than one or the other, and more than both.  In light of Him, who I am and what I do with myself take on fresh meanings.  And that, I think, is where joy lies.

journey's end

Today I printed off my Pre-Thesis and had it bound at the main office here at Eston College. In some ways it feels surreal: I keep wondering if I should go back and pour over more details, continuing to refine it. Instead I need to realize that it isgood...and there may be some small mistakes here and there...and that's okay. They will get cleared up after the first few reads. It was great to be finished writing yesterday on my birthday, too.

The Scarlet Monk

Pre-Thee Away!

My Pre-Thesis is almost complete. Just a few more revisions now, and some final editing and it will be finally finished. It's hard to believe that it was a year and a half ago that the idea was born: now it has become a reality, a blessing, and, I hope, a help and inspiration to those who read it.

The Scarlet Monk

can you hear the gardener?

Part of our class on Spiritual Theology includes periodic mini-retreats. Lauren Miller will have us examine a particular spiritual discipline or practice and then have us participate in it together. This week's class we were discussing how metaphors are a way in which meaning is communicated oftentimes in a better way than if the thing was blatantly said. We were given twenty minutes to each write metaphors of our own and then share them with the class. We were told to write with the following question in mind, "What would you want to say to your classmates about themselves and the time that you've shared together?"

A metaphor written as part of a class discussion and reflection in Spiritual Theology with Lauren Miller, Autumn 2008:

My dear ones,

I can hear the muffled footsteps of the Gardener, treading the worn path to our small grove. Listen. Can you hear him? Some of us can. This is not one of his regular visits to our shelter. He has come to rework the garden again. Before he comes…let me remind you... Let us remember when we each came and how we’ve grown together.

I was but a young sapling, you see.

Brought from strange lands in the east, planted carefully in a shaded spot by the stream. Many of you were there. And some of you had yet to come and be planted. We were each being brought…some in wheelbarrows, some as seeds…but each planted with care and purpose in the space which would best suit us to grow as the Gardner desired.

The stream was cool and deep, and many thoughts and ideas it brought to our minds, calling us to live deeper and grow stronger…to learn from the past. The elms and oaks around us taught us how to drink. How to taste. How to dig our roots deeper into the soil to find the nutrients. It was a hard task to learn…but we managed soon enough and the father and mother trees were very patient. They taught us to open our leaves and feed on the warmth of the Son. By light and water we were made…we feasted together on the goodness of the Gardner’s provision.

In time we grew stronger…some of us have been in the garden for a couple years now. Growing and drinking and eating. The gardner has been ever-loving in his care. He comes to tend us…to ensure our health…to gather the fruit of our labour. Sometimes we hear him coming to prune, and the oak tree reminds us that this is part of growing up. As hard as we try to hide them, the Gardner always finds the dead branches. He removes them in love and takes them away from us.

It has been good, hasn’t it? The wisdom of the older trees, the companionship of our peers, the joy and seeing younger saplings be planted beside us? It is so good. And yet…it does not last forever. It was never meant to. You see, the Gardner knows how to grow us best…and though some of us have grown together for many years now…the time will come when he will come and take us away.

He is, after all, the Gardner.

Some of us will be taken away together. For myself, I seem to have gotten all tangled up with a young willow wand and it seems the two of us will have to be transplanted together. Some of you have branches spread across to other trees in other gardens…I think he will transplant you to the same place as well…when the time comes.

Ah… he has arrived. It is springtime. Well my friends, it is time to go. Thank you for the memories…for helping me learn to drink and eat…for growing along with me for these past four years. I love you all. Farewell…my friends… until we meet again in the greater garden where all trees reside. The Great Garden, which extends beyond all rivers and all meadows, forever...at the end of all things.

The Scarlet Monk

On Hope

In the mounting climax of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins are caught in a physical and emotional maelstrom as they realize that their quest has been completed at the expense of their own lives. The reactions of our heroes provide a startling contrast. Frodo has resolved himself to death; he announces a final appreciation of Sam’s friendship and loyalty. Sam, however, feels only joy at witnessing Frodo’s restoration. He quickly asserts:

“Yes, I am with you, Master,’ said Sam, laying Frodo’s wounded hand gently to his breast. “And you’re with me. And the journey’s finished. But after coming all that way I don’t want to give up yet. It’s not like me, somehow, if you understand.”
“Maybe not Sam,” said Frodo; “but its like things are in the world. Hopes fail.” (Tolkien, Return, 231).

Yet Sam’s hope has not failed. Rolland Hein reminds readers that there is in Tolkien’s legendarium an “overarching Power whose purposes will not fail” (Hein, Mythmakers, 208). This transcendent guidance is especially noted in the early exposition of The Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf assures Frodo that he is meant by this Higher Power to possess the Ring. Sam has seized some understanding of this truth and has taken it a step further than Frodo—he believes in a grand conclusion to his existence based on divine orchestration.

Sam portrays aspects of the Christian’s future hope in eventual glory. Paul reflects on a powerful eschatological assurance in his Epistle to the Romans. The Christian’s hope is on the bases of his or her justification by faith through the resurrection of Christ. Hope is the Christian’s anticipation of ultimate salvation; a state which will not be fully realized until the redemption of our bodies (Romans 5:2-5). Our hope of glory is rooted in the promise of our future resurrection and eternal life.

The context for this hope is found in the midst of suffering (Romans 8:18-39). Like Sam, we are to endure our present struggles. Paul is not suggesting an escapist’s ignorance of real life. Instead, we wrestle through life with a deep assurance that our stories will end with what we have been promised through Christ’s resurrection. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28; NASB).” Christians find this hope in the promise of the Gospel. It is rooted subjectively in the historical resurrection of Christ and objectively in the power of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life. Douglas J. Moo concludes that Paul sees hope as an essential element for what it means to be a Christian. We are believers who exist in the tension of the “already, but not yet” of our glorification. “We are a people who are always looking forward to what is yet to come.” (Moo, Romans, 139)

Paul’s instructions, like Sam’s honorable example, bring with their inspiration a piercing challenge: Do we endure hardships with joy, hoping in what we see not? With faith, we can pray for the day when we will still have hope in the midst of sorrows. Our eyes will stray, like Sam’s, to where the “sky far off was clear, as the cold blast, rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds.” (Tolkien, 232) In a way, we are better equipped than Sam to look through our present sufferings towards an ultimate closure to our life’s journey.

The Scarlet Monk