Worldly Holiness

Just Above Timberline–Training vs. Trying

Just Above Timberline, originally uploaded by papalars.

August 6th, 2008 Posted by andres | Daily Journey, Inward-Outward Stuff, Quotables | no comments

Nature leads the Celebration–with Pompoms in Hand

Flower, originally uploaded by papalars.

One of the responses to this photo on my blog said this looks like a party, like the flowers are celebrating something. I found the comments fitting as well as suggestive. Nature once again comes to our aid in leading the song through life, the good, bad, the mediocre and the sublime pieces that make up life.

This last month has been difficult for me. There are many aspects that have contributed to this being the case, most recently a fowl cold that has put me on my back for about a week, effectively eliminating any residual energy for writing, taking pictures, getting out, let alone doing ministry. Other things have also added to the burden of April this year. Some looming deadlines have not paused during this month either so now as I'm coming out of the hole and they are looming that much more, coming at me faster than last week! Eeeches. Sometimes life works this way. This is when I need to be reminded by God's creation that with God, there is the promise of new life each day. In the midst of lament, I am reminded that, "The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is thy faithfulness." [Lamentations 3:22-23].

Henri Nouwen reminds us in his little volume, Clowning in Rome, that "it is sad that in our days we no longer believe in the ministry of nature to us. We so easily limit ministry to work for people by people. But we could do an immense service to our world if we would let nature heal, counsel, and teach again" [p. 93]. The other day, after several days of hiding away inside with my cold, I got out to the local park and found the flowers were able to minister to me. Without demanding they be noticed, without making noise, they made the quiet but unmistakable statement that God's lovingkindness never ceases. In the context of a difficult month, they were nice and welcome reminders that God is good.

Flowers, and nature, however, are generally not demanding our attention, so can go unnoticed. I can think of a qualification to that statement even as I made it, like storms for instance, or the kickback we are beginning to see from global warming. Having said that, however, nature generally does not force us to listen. But we miss this little and significant piece of God's handiwork, along with it access to the language of the soul, at our own peril. Again, Nouwen reminds us that "our difficult and very urgent task is to realize that nature is not primarily a property to be possessed, but a gift to be received with admiration and gratitude."

I am right there. I don't like to work in gardens. Weeds, dirt under the nails, sore knees. Not my cup of tea. But it is in the garden, at least those tended by others, where I have recently found new strength, perspective, and reminder of God's unfailing mercy and faithfulness. That is something to celebrate, with pompoms!

May 1st, 2007 Posted by andres | Daily Journey, Quotables | no comments

Monastery walks

Monastery walks, originally uploaded by papalars.

“There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, and we move through life in such a distracted way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say, or do are worth thinking, saying, or doing.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen in The Way of the Heart, p. 10.

Last week, Carol and I were at the all-Europe staff retreat in Santander, in northern Spain. We had great times of interaction with the rest of our team serving in places across this incredibly diverse region–The Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Russia, Sweden, and other parts of Spain. We also had several folks who came as guests from Chicago who played a role with us in the retreat experience. The highlight for me was to get to know each other a little better and the time of breaking bread together at each meal.

One of the components of the retreat reflected a theme in the broader leadership of the Covenant denomination, the area of “sustaining pastoral excellence.” It may not be obvious to all what this refers to. Essentially, we are talking about how to keep going over the long haul, maintaining the internal fire for one’s personal life and ministry. I learned in one of the presentations that the Christian ministry is one of the most dangerous careers today with a very high incidence of health, personal and relational problems. It is tough going in other words. Missionaries are part of this equation. We have the added issues that come with separation from family and loved ones and pressures [along with the joys] of living in another culture.

It occurred to me somewhere after the retreat that I was exhausted. I also got sick during the retreat, bringing that back with me to Barcelona. This explains a little of the absence of posts on my blog for about a week. Hmm, I was supposed to be refreshed from the time away at the retreat. Well, I was in certain ways, but in all honesty, I think we tried to pack too much into our agenda. This brings me to think about our lives in general. While much of our daily life is good and full, how often do I run from one distraction to another? Somewhere in the last 2 days I read the quote above from Henri Nouwen and I felt like this describes my life too much. I'm like the little hamster on the wheel in the cage that goes faster the faster one runs? As servants of Christ, passionate about ministry and getting things done for the Kingdom, we too often resemble that little hamster! I admit, guilty as charged.

Our retreat last week was good. It was very good activity, all of it. But it was not really a retreat to recharge the batteries for life and ministry. I didn’t take enough time to rest, reflect and listen. This is serious stuff for, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain." [Psalm 127:1]. Pray for us as we take the next steps in life and ministry. We need to keep the passion of the Lord before us and discern what he would have us do and be, with each other, our loved ones, our children, ourselves, and our focus friends. Thanks for accompanying us in the journey.

April 9th, 2007 Posted by andres | Ministry Updates, Inward-Outward Stuff, Quotables | no comments

Quotables: What kind of Witness?

“We regard our involvement in….mission as an adventure, are prepared to take risks, and are anticipating surprises as the Spirit guides us into fuller understanding. This is not opting for agnosticism, but for humility. It is, however, a bold humility —or a humble boldness. We know only in part, but we do know. And we believe that the faith we profess is both true and just, and should be proclaimed. We do this, however, not as judges or lawyers, but as witnesses; not as soldiers, but as envoys of peace; not as high-pressure salespersons, but as ambassadors of the Servant Lord.”               

                                          David Bosch in Transforming Mission

This is a guiding thought from a first rate missiologist as we consider our work among our focus people. His book, Transforming Mission is an encyclopedia. Really! I recommend it to anyone who wants a top shelf guide to a history of missions and the thoughts behind the different periods in mission history. He does an in depth assessment of the guiding paradigm of each significant period from the New Testament to modern times. He passed away in the 90's but left us all with his profound reflections, all 587 pages worth! 

March 23rd, 2007 Posted by andres | Important Reading, Quotables | no comments

Contemplation–Psalm 19 & Finding Your Way

Contemplation, originally uploaded by papalars.

This new piece on my blog will evolve into an entire section on the "Inward" aspect of the Inward–Outward journey. To begin with I have posted quotes dealing with aspects of the inner life–leadership, contemplation, holiness (not a dirty word by the way), solitude and general aspects of following Christ. Oh, yes there are a few quotes about our culture and suburbia near the end as well. I was partly inspired by friends and collegues Chris and Diane Wiebe to add these to my blog. For many of us, inner reflection is essential to life. I hope to provide tools for reflection and contemplation as this blog matures, and to encourage anyone who joins Christ on the Inward–Outward journey! By the way, all the photos in the mosaic above are mine, taken over a span of many years of interest in photography. God provides a great lab for reflection. Psalm 19 comes to mind.

Western spirituality focuses on upward mobility that has an innate fear of “the fall.”     - Anne Dillard

“If solitude were primarily an escape from a noisy milieu, they could easily become very self-centered forms of asceticism. But solitude and silence are for prayer. The Desert Fathers did not think of solitude as being alone, but as being alone with God.” - Henri Nouwen

“Life naturally provides those moments and occasions of unintentional contemplation, times when the foundations of life seem swept away and we are left with the need to see life from a different perspective.
- Parker Palmer

“Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.”
- Frederick Buechner

“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”
- Mother Teresa

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
- Annie Dillard, in Teaching a Stone to Talk

In all my experience, I have never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, come from the outside in. Outside-in approaches result in unhappy people who feel victimized and immobilized, who focus on the weaknesses of other people and the circumstances they feel are responsible for their own stagnant situation.”                                                                                                                                                                                     - Steven R. Covey

“When a leader takes up all the space and preempts all the action, he or she may make something happen, but that something is not community. Nor is it abundance, because the leader is only one person and one person’s resources invariably run out.”
- Parker Palmer

“Repentance is not an emotion, not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you were wrong… it is a’ feet on the ground’ kind of word.”
– Eugene Peterson

Nouwen finds in the Desert traditions of the 4th and 5th centuries a model for spirituality that can be the source of renewal and vitality for those enmeshed in the busy schedules and interactions with people. The Desert Fathers [and Mothers] sought a new form of witness after the persecutions of the pre-Constantine era stopped. The end of persecutions did not mean the world had accepted the Gospel. This was a time when the prevailing culture of the church began to resemble the world in which it existed, failing to embody the ideals and gospel of Jesus Christ. The “world” was no longer the enemy of the church after Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. - Andrew Larsen commentary from Henri Nouwen

 “Thirty-six references are found in the Gospels with the words ‘Follow Me’ on the lips of Jesus. The word 'evangelical' never appears in the entire New Testament. The word 'Christian' appears once in Acts when it was used by outsiders in derision of the people of the way, the ones that were little Christ ones. In others words, people thought of Jesus Christ when they thought of the early Christians. There was little ambiguity.  How do we talk about who we are? How would others describe us to their friends?.” - Andrew Larsen

Although the church’s recent fascination with spirituality has yielded some positive fruit, the “what’s-in-it-for-me” impulse of our consumerist culture has taken center stage. Spirituality has become an end in itself, serving strictly the needs of the individual along the lines of personal temperament and wants, bordering on a spiritual narcissism.
- Andrew Larsen

“Holiness is the Christian life mature. It’s gathering all the parts and pieces of your life into obedience and response to God, and living with some energy. Holiness is a blazing thing, an energetic thing. Part of the reason the modern church has lost its taste for holiness is that it has become engineered. “
- Eugene Peterson

“According to Jesus, there is no authentic Christianity, discipleship or Christian ethics apart from doing the deeds he taught his followers to do….”
- Glen Stassen

“Holiness is not different action, it is different being.”
– Dallas Willard

“You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is required. The stars neither require it nor demand it.”
- Annie Dillard

“The greatest threat to the life of the church is the loss of its gospel substance, and the surest way to bring this about is for the ministry to become a bureaucracy functioning to maintain the structures of the original church, mindless of its subservience to the mission of the gospel to the world.” - Carl Braaten

"Each year, we construct the equivalent of many cities, but the pieces don't add up to anything memorable or of lasting value. The result doesn't look like a place, it doesn't act like a place, and perhaps most significantly it doesn't feel like a place. Rather it feels like what it is: an uncoordinated agglomeration of standardized single-use zones with little pedestrian life and even less civic identification, connected only by an overtaxed network of roadways."
- Andres, Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck in The Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream 

"We Americans want it all: endless and secure energy supplies; low prices; no pollution; less global warming; no new power plants (or oil and gas drilling, either) near people or pristine places. This is a wonderful wish list, whose only shortcoming is the minor inconvenience of massive inconsistency." - Robert J. Samuelson

"We do not want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong."
- G. K. Chesterton

December 13th, 2006 Posted by andres | Daily Journey, Inward-Outward Stuff, Quotables | no comments