More Quotations...

"Every woman is in some way searching for or running away from her beauty and every man is looking for or avoiding his strength. Why? In some deep place within, we remember what we were made to be, we carry with us the memory of gods, image-bearers walking in the Garden. So why do we flee our essence? As hard as it may be for us to see our sin, it is far harder still for us to remember our glory." - Brent Curtis

I feel like it is far easier for me not to think of the glory you hold in who you are, because then I don't have to be disappointed when our engagement with each other is much less than glorious. When I really don't like who you are, it is much easier to say that you don't hold much value than to take responsibility for the ways we have disconnected. Contempt for you is so much easier than mourning what has not happened.

To truly know and believe in the glory you hold calls me to pursue that part of you, to love you in a way that calls both of us out of our hiding, where we have to decide whether to show our face or not.

How many times I have written off and been written off by others as uninteresting or inconsequential. To feel the depth of glory in every human being calls me to continue to pursue you, because I know that underneath my assumptions of who you are there is so much more. There is enough beauty and creativity and sweetness and strength in your heart to deeply move and shake mine. How hard is it to know that when we don't like each other! Assumptions are much easier to live in than glory.

And it is far easier to think of what is than what we were made to be.

Liminal Spaces in Time

"If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason or industry, than upon that power which brings thee into the presence of Christ, it will be long before thou become enlightened; for God will have us perfectly subject unto him, that being inflamed with his love, we may transcend the narrow limits of human reason." Thomas Kempis

I came across this reading the other day and it evoked these thoughts in me. Thinking of counseling, I was reminded that despite my attempts to get the right words out there, I do not reason with someone's soul, I engage it with my own. It is in knowledge and reason that we know of time and limits, and it is in love that we know of eternity held in a moment, of expanses of depth and meaning and beauty that transcend any reason or formula. We were made for those moments, those liminal places, where the boundaries between what is now and what will be are blurred. It is in those liminal places where the kingdom is as here as it can be. And still not quite yet.

Risky Worship

"Even the most courageous among us only rarely has the courage for that which he really knows." - Nietzsche

In Isaiah 30:9-11, the people ask the prophet for illusions. They want to hear 'pleasant things', things that will make them feel nice. They don't want to hear the truth. They want lies. They ask for pretense.

And that is me. Because I know that if I really were to let myself express the deeply hidden, tender wounds of my heart, I would most likely weep uncontrollably - and if I really let myself go, I would probably destroy the very room I am in. I got to experience a bit of that feeling of truth this past week, and it felt like grace to have someone say he would vouch for me in my desire to throw a chair through the wall. That my story is worth more than a room was new to me.

It is even more new for me to hear that God would call that worship. I'd much rather take the easier route of worship and sing songs on Sunday than take the risk of valuing my story enough to actually let it affect me, and those things (or people) around me.

Severe Rush of Life

Self-portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
Abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need
To change you. If you can look back
With firm eyes
Saying this is where I stand. I want to know
If you know
How to melt into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward
The center of your longing. I want to know
If you are willing
To live, day by day, with the consequence of love
And the bitter
Unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

-David Whyte
From Fire In the Earth

Can I speak of a God who creates a love that He cannot even control? Can I know a God who allows His own self to not know, to wait, expectantly sit, and let His creation experience the beautiful and dreadful tenacity of love? In that moment, even the gods speak of God. Where God takes a deep breath and experiences the severe rush of life.

If this is not the case, can God not be moved?

Caleb

This weekend at class we got into some good niece and nephew moments, and I brought up one of my favorite ones I had heard of from my nephew Caleb, the coolest 3 year old around, a little miniature, uninhibited version of my older brother.

Caleb came out of the bathroom with no clothes on, flailing around, shouting, "mommy, mommy, look at my penis! It's huge! My penis is huge!"

Raw, uncut Caleb right there. How cool is it to see the freedom in pronouncing whatever it is he is excited about. How cool is that and how sucky is it when shame comes in. I think I have some serious envy in that freedom of self-expression. He cracks me up so much. So joyful to see his face light up, his playful side completely illuminated. I delight in his foolishness. How much I wish I could delight in my own foolishness.









What a stud.

Rich

More and more I see how it is in the surprise, and not formulation, where life's richest experiences lay. How often is it that in the conversation where you really see the other person, it is not formulated by control, but in the letting go to let yourself be who you are. In the risk of allowing yourself to really be seen, to really be known, and to have someone delight in that presence - that feels like really living.

I believe that it is in the idiosyncrasies where we fall in love, the little things that can only come from the whole of who we are - it had always been that look that could've only been hers when she had my heart. Sitting with close friends, it is not the topic of conversation, but simply the people you are with. And it is not in the joke, but the ensuing laugh that can only be yours that makes the moment.

It is surprise, it is the grace that comes in not because of what you have done, but what you have allowed there to be. Strange how it feels like grace for me to actually allow myself to enter into conversations with people who will simply enjoy the part of me that is really me. And those relationships feel like grace, because they are so rich, and they have so much life.

My Inner World

True freedom for me has everything to do with my ability to believe in the fact that I am worth it to be free.

Triple Door

A couple weeks late, but thought I'd still post the night with Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk. A good show at an amazing venue (The Triple Door). I have already introduced my appreciation of his music in a previous blog (Creative Perfection) so no need to go any further. Though I see why he tends toward the whisper in his songs. He does not have the range with his voice to amaze in his live shows, but still put on a good performance.

The Word

"Thus to speak a true word is to transform the world." - Paulo Freire

How crazy is it when words have such meaning, yet they cannot penetrate, they cannot incite, they cannot reach your guts. And then in that moment, in that right time, they carry the weight of the world in their utterance.

I am beginning to see the difference between that which is simply verbalism, and that which is the spoken word that enters into the soul of the other. To speak the latter is to 'transform the world.'

It is the difference between actually living in the world or simply watching it go by, the difference between actually seeing someone or being surrounded by strangers. The true word, if we will take the risk, if we will choose to show up and speak it, will transform our worlds.

Dying to Live and Living to Die

A head on encounter with my own self in the past several weeks has led me into what seems like a paradoxical locus, a place where once again two apparently opposing ideas must be embraced at the same time.

The one side is where I find myself in practicum, the side that continually looks into the heart of my own self, the part of me that is truly me. I thought I knew who that was. But as my facilitator breaks down the paradigms that have clouded my own perception of me, I have begun to see the very raw parts of who I am.

Over the years of people pleasing and worrying about what others think and say, by conforming to what I ‘should’ do instead of what I desire to do, I have forfeited my own voice and lost my own self. This loss of self has often been compounded in the Christian realm, where I am even more susceptible to be led into areas of conformity and comparison. Even more than that, Christ calls us to ‘die to ourselves,’ and this phrase can be used to create a context where there is so much ‘God’ that there is no real place for a person. God’s will can become so infused in our thinking that we believe that this transcendent, mysterious God is all we are, yet forget that getting to our true, personal sense of volition and desire is exactly where God is.

Sitting in my counseling session last week, I was asked how I felt, and I responded in all honesty that I really did not know. For the life of me I couldn’t put a name to my feelings, because I wasn’t feeling anything. The next question was why I was not feeling anything, and then I realized again that I had been so conscientious to follow the lead of the instructor, so careful to please him and do what he would think is ‘right,’ my own self was lost and all of my feelings with it. I was lost. I was caught in the idea that a good Christian is kind and makes sure that no one gets upset. My own version of dying to my self often leaves others trying to communicate to a robot.

What do I do with the fact that I am to continually die to my self as Christ calls me to do, and at the same time fight for my own volition, my desire, my wants and my needs? This seems to be the locus, the place where dying and living are fused together in contradiction.

How do I carry both of these at the same time? I think the first step is to deconstruct my own paradigms of what dying to my self and what it really means to live. It is not a weak, self-pitying, indifferent disposition that forfeits my side. And at the same time, truly living is not a pompous, selfish greed that takes whenever it wants. It is so easy to polarize, to end up on one side, and so testing to sit in the tension of both living and dying. But knowing where we have formed our conceptions of each side is a place to start, and that seems to be where I am sitting right now.

Broken Beer Bottles

After the last set of marriage and family therapy intensives last week, I left in between feelings of doubt and excitement. Dan Allender, in his customary dramatic manner, spoke often of the hostile environment marriage counseling produces. He likens it to two arenas: a mud wrestling match or a bar brawl. “Have you ever been in a context where someone is trying to take a bottle that they just consumed and split your head open? Have you ever been hit in the face? Have you ever been knocked down? Have you ever been kicked in the stomach? Again, these are metaphors. Maybe.”

Good Lord. This is not what I signed up for. I picture myself in control, the couple attentive, amicable and agreeing. Dan makes me feel like I better bring a bullet proof vest to work everyday. Maybe I should’ve stuck with engineering. Math problems are much easier to solve than human beings.

To compound what feels like a monumental task is the fact that I would characterize myself as a ‘nice boy.’ This is part of a typology we have used in class, where a nice boy steers away from confrontation, one who will often agree to avoid conflict. Where does a nice boy fit into a bar brawl?

This is what I was left with, holding both a discouraged and excited self at the same time. Yet while I have a lot of work to do, and while I may be a ‘nice boy,’ I know there is a drive and passion that dismisses me from that same label. And Dan has reminded me of the call to step out of safety and into war.

I am reminded that Christianity is not an escape to a peaceful heaven, but a call to engage in the horrific injustices of this world. You will have to fight and lose terribly, get bloody and angry and suffer and scream at God, and actually feel something for this world, rather than pose an indifferent smile. How often I want to forget this. How often I want to turn down the knob of reality. How often I want to escape into a 'spiritual' place, yet I forget that my flesh and blood is spiritual, and we are called to engage in the flesh and blood of life.

Room for Glory

I am obviously entrenched here at Mars Hill in the study of psychology. It is incredibly interesting and so valuable for me to engage in, to really get a better picture of my own self, why I do the things I do, my motives, etc. It has uncovered a great deal (though I have only scratched the surface I’m sure), and I think anyone really going into ministry, whether a pastor or a counselor, should know more deeply who they are, to be attuned to the entire operating system that is continuously in flux below what we know as consciousness.

However, amidst all of the psychology, all of the explanations of life, I still feel there’s much space and mystery in me that cannot be explained by science and psychology. Psychology does not fully encompass and portray the complexity of the human condition. Psychology does not define me as well as Christianity. I do not come alive by psychology – I come alive when I experience the spirit of Christ. Why after spending so much time in the books, reading about who I am, do I never get the feeling, the rush of life and confidence about who I am as I do when I feel moved by the spirit of God in worship? Last semester, in my counseling sessions, I would often try to bring much of what I have learned in class, psychological principles, etc, to my time. While that would help, it would not compare to the presence I would bring when I felt moved by the Spirit, when I really felt like I was walking with the Lord. My facilitator would be taken aback by this presence, very noticeable and different.

Quantum physics seems to reveal this same mystery that traditional science and psychology cannot explain. Much of psychology wants to be able to explain every action by a causal relationship down to the biological event that takes place. They want to reduce every emotion and movement to the root, which they say starts with the neurons that fire in your brain, bringing a chain of biological reactions that lead to your action. This is what you would call a reductionistic approach, where all explanations of life and consciousness are reduced to the operations of the 3 pound chunk of brain tissue in your head.

And here is where quantum physics is revealing something different. They are finding that the further one tries to go down the scale of physical reality, the less material there appears to be. In fact, the farther we reach into the minute space of quantum physics, the more reality seems to consist of nonmaterial information. Instead of something physical, there is space and mystery, more pure potential for matter or energy or something of the like but they are not sure what. (What the Bleep Do We Know attempts to explain this)

Thus the mind is being revealed as something that is greater than the sum of the parts that support it. The whole – that being human life and consciousness – is more than the sum of all the biological parts that make up the human body. There is mystery, there is room for the spirit, for that which is greater, to dream up a world outside of that which is caused by neural firings.

So the point of this, for me, is to again by humbled by my own endeavor to learn all that psychology attempts to explain about my own self. There is more than me knowing everything. Information only gets me so far. I can gain all the knowledge in the world, yet this same knowledge will be my downfall, for I will be too arrogant to be able to simply engage in a genuine way that will really create transformation in the other person. There is learning, and then there is being. Psychology focuses more on the knowing, and the gospel focuses on the spirit, the attitude, the engagement and presence. The learning focuses on reductions, which is helpful and needed, but can be rather anemic, fairly dull, tedious. Being, on the other hand, is rich and beautiful. It is art. It is life. It is greater than fact. Being leaves room for Glory. And Glory is the richest life has to offer. And if we have hearts to engage in this spirit of being, we can then see the Glory that exists, the Glory that is pulsating out of all that is. This picture reveals both Glory and information. But it encapsulates life much better by the sum of the colors and objects laced together as a whole, than what any of them reveal on their own. As a whole, this picture reveals Glory. It is packed with expression of that which is greater than itself.

May we have eyes to see Glory, may we see through the lens of being, of wholeness, may our spirit bring a greater presence than what we know. Instead of simply talking with each other and exchanging information, may we engage in a way of being with one another that reveals the Glory of God. May our hearts have much room for Glory.

Classes

I thought I'd share to those outside of the school the new classes of the semester.

Practicum II - where we counsel one another and have the rest of our group watch. The best word to describe the experience was spoken by a classmate during our orientation: nauseating. It is intense enough to counsel someone, let alone having an entire group analyze you as you do it. We also meet outside of class to counsel each other on our own, and meet with a staff person to be counseled. That's a lot of counseling...(i think about 6 hours a week)

Marriage and Family Therapy - We get Dan Allender again, and the first set of intensives last week were good, though didn't quite have the punch that Faith, hope and love did for me. Still very good though. The first paper this week is on gender, God's design on this, specifically applying it to marriage. Definitely a difficult topic today, as we saw last semester with the people against fundamentalism attempting to protest against some of Mark Driscoll's comments on women.

Impact of Abuse - I'm pretty interested in this class, where for the first time I will really start to get a picture and engage in the harsh realities of domestic violence in the world, its affects and how to care for so many who have experienced the devastating consequences. Sexual violence, oppression, racism; all topics that cry out for one of the key themes of the Gospel, which is justice.

History of Therapeutic Perspectives - I don't know much about this yet, it just looks like it covers the major counseling theories and the men and women who formed them. Lots of psychology.

Celtic Spirituality - a one credit 'spiritual formation' elective that I needed to take that meets just one weekend. Interesting but probably least excited about this one.

Thin Blue Lines

I have been moved to express my two hour experience of church this morning. And once again, as has been the case every time I sit down to write - the onerous task of transferring experience into words on a page, providing the reader a little bit of the fullness of what happened. The joy and art of words and language...attempted again today.

In the midst of what I have described before as death in this deconstruction here at Mars Hill, this morning I found myself worshipping in the midst of life and what I know to be true. My certainty was found in these moments, within a spirit lifted so high I felt all but a thin line between me and heaven. Lost in the moment, my body open to move and sway wherever it pleases. Where I was given the full sense of what it means to be a man. Where I was given the fullness of what it means to feel.

All of this centered on words bellowing out by those around me, singing,
“All my delight is found in you Jesus.”

The power of those words in that room - ineffable yet indelibly formed into my memory.

There may have to be doubt for there to be faith, but there is also a certainty in His presence. How can one argue with a heart that is made fully alive?

In a Nutshell

Thoughts at the end of a full, long, emotionally exhausting, disrupting and beautiful semester:

Being a part of a community of people for any extended period of time is an arduous journey and at the same time everything I desire.

God will use those who 'dont know' to teach those who 'know.’

Truth is relational (but not relative).

Modernism is not the enemy, and neither is postmodernism. They are simply the ways things are (or were), and each are both healthy and unhealthy lenses used to draw meaning.

I don’t bring my full presence when I meet you –I don’t know if you or I can handle that – or can we?

How do I live out the gospel in the midst of preaching it so passionately to you?

Transformation does not happen through information, but by encounter. People will not change by nice sayings and theory, but through experience, through engagement.

People come into therapy for a solution to their problem. We are to be involved in a process of translating the human heart into the language of the Gospel. This is not for me to simply say ‘God is good’ but to create a living experience of this truth with them.

A rough run in relationships for the past 5 years has made me want to give up hope - just in time came faith, hope, and love, and I guess I’m supposed to keep at it…hooray for hope.

“Father sing me into feeling.”

My heart frightens me in its deceitfulness and amazes me in its desire.

Spiegel im spiegel

Language. Writing. Being able to hold all that could and had to happen.

Snow on the ground = four hour gridlock.

My cash-flow is not ideal at the moment.

Life is not ideal. Changing a tire in the pouring rain in the middle of rush hour traffic on the last day of class…not ideal.

I have been blessed by the entrance of some people into my life. The unpredictability of a God that surprises us with something that is sweet, where for a moment, the true fullness of ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ is felt. That is a blessing, and I am thankful.

I am continually drawn into repentance, my knees to the floor, by one thing: beauty.

Upside Down Kingdom

Taking a break from my faith hope and love studying earlier today, I had some lunch and in doing so came across a scene from Philadelphia that seemed to sum up a part of what this semester has done in me.

Andrew (played by Tom Hanks) is a gay man in the movie, talking to his lawyer, Joe (Denzel Washington) when in the background, an opera comes on. Andrew walks over to the stereo, turns up the volume, then leads Joe into the meaning, expressing the heart of the beautifully spoken words of the female opera singer as the song plays. He enters into her heart, eyes closed, ready to catch every nuance her voice projects. He describes her initial longing, and the suffering and loss that follows in the song, and then the increased desire that the woman says will be now open to experience with another, and then at the end, when the female opera singer is at the climax, he begins to weep, completely absorbed in face of love.

It was fitting. I sat there amazed, even startled. Right after reading so much on faith, hope, and love, I was led into the experience of the heart of the concepts by a gay man. The similarity between the scene and what I just read was almost eerie.

Someone so easily written off as a 'sinner' led me passionately into the love of God. Such seems to be the way God works, what the Kingdom looks like.

I thank this school and the people here who have shown me the humanity and the divine in what so often in the past has been seen as 'secular'. I have been humbled this semester by those who do not seem to 'know Christ' yet seem to reveal Him in such a profound way. Watch this scene and tell me this man does not reveal the glory of God.

The Face of the Other

I was just reading the interesting dialogue we have going on here in Seattle between Mark Driscoll and a pastor in the area(among others), Rose Madrid-Swetman.

It was great to read her comments about what went on in the face to face meeting. What most struck me was her comment:

"Words on a blog or on a paper are one thing—people in a room who those words touch are quite another."

With so much rhetoric on both sides of this dialogue, it is good to remember how easy it is to call out the 'other' when you are not sitting face to face, looking into the eyes of another human being.

How are we living out the gospel in the midst of our passion and ensuing differences about this same gospel? It was great to see both sides here appearing to act in the same love they so passionately preach.

Creative Perfection

Listening to a new artist, Joshua Radin, whose music caught my attention right away.

The thing that got me the most is the way his voice moves with the rhythm of the song (I would say in particular his song Winter). It shifts and sways in a captivatingly smooth conduct. Such a way that you feel he is singing it the exact way it should be sung, as if the song was inspired, like he is awakening something, bringing life to something in the very way it was supposed to be, expressing a beauty that is already written, waiting to be given life.

We have the ability to give life to things in song, give life to the things that God is waiting for us to create, to do so in a way that it feels as though the words and rhythms are said the exact way they were supposed to be. This composing creates a holy, sacred sound.

And that is what Joshua does. The way his songs travel, the way they move, so effortless, it seems as though he is bringing to life something the amazingly beautiful and creative way it was supposed to be given life. It is creative perfection. It is awakening, giving expression, a revelation of the beauty of God.

Family Time

Before the family got together this week, my dad sent the bros a picture from a past vacation, a time when we all had much more hair and a much better tan...

My mom didn't know that Matthew or I were coming this time. The night before I flew out my mom was at David's and I needed to get ahold of him, so we went into covert style, with the following text message:

'Roger 1 this is painted squirrel, just making sure that all the nuts are in place for tomorrow, give me a call when the eagle is out of sight - out.'

Operation successful, making for a good surprise and a good birthday for my mom and thanksgiving for everyone.

It was a shock stepping out of the mars hill world, leading to much reflection of the past 3 months of school. I was heavy from the weight of the program, the questioning that seems continuous in every fashion of experience at the school. Indirectly and indiscreetly it takes its toll on every part of me, something I didn't fully realize until I got on the plane and traveled away from Seattle. It is painful, this apparent feeling of an absence of God in the midst of this questioning that goes on. Though painful is not enough to describe it. It is like death. A song I have paints the experience when it says

'your silence is like death to me.'

It feels like death to sit in this deconstruction.

Yet this heaviness was lifted on the last night in Maryland, where a love that cannot be given justice by the use of words was expressed for our mother, whom celebrated her 60th birthday. Matthew made an amazing video that captured our expressions of gratitude and awe, with an ending verse from Colossians 3:14-

"Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity."

Amidst so many questions of what is and what is not in this program, my soul was able to rest in the reminder that love is on a different plane, a higher level of understanding, a deeper wisdom above what can be questioned.

Mirror Back

An interesting thought was brought up by my roommate when I talked about my guy friends of old, the men who did life with me at Michigan State. I was telling her about them and I was quickly taken back by the great amount of confidence that swelled. This then exposed some of my lack of confidence I have been standing in with my current experience at Mars Hill, the different man here in Seattle than the man who was at MSU.

Why the discrepancy? This is where Eden comes in, when she talked about how people reflect back who we are, both the good and bad. Those men back at MSU did this, they reflected back to me the man that I was, leaving me confident about where I stand as a man.

This was relived the other day, when Kyle, my old friend from MSU said, "Do you realize you are the hottest bachelor is seattle this moment??!!!" It was a rediculous comment, but nevertheless it felt pretty dang good to hear and it gave me the confidence I needed that moment.

And as for this new place of Mars Hill...I'm not sure, I'm more confused about where I stand, what they all think of me. I don't think it is in any way their fault - if anything that is expected when you meet new people in a totally new place - but it definitely has its affect.

The picture is in honor of the man, the myth, the kmac, who always told us to "step it up a notch!' Thanks for the comments Kyle, much appreciated.