A Few Thoughts on Vocation

04/15/2008, 9:00 am -- by | No Comments

A person knows when she has found her vocation when she stops thinking and begins to live . . . When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles the voice of our conscience. When we find our vocation — thought and life are one. — Thomas Merton

All of us know how difficult it can be to feel like we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our desires are at war with our reality; we find ourselves wishing we could spend more time on some activity but feel unable to give it the attention we want. Or, worse, we’re unsure what we really, deeply want in life. If life is about finding the unique purpose God has charged us with, that is of course the deepest desire of our heart; and yet often we don’t know what that is.

Catholic mystic Thomas Merton gives us a clue. When Merton speaks of “vocation,” he is speaking more deeply than our paid employment. He is speaking about the deep callings of our hearts, that unique way of being human that both encourages your heart and touches the world with God’s love. When we are living out our vocation, Merton holds, there is a certain integrity to our lives. If we are living out God’s call on our lives, our thoughts and desires will not be at war with reality because we will be living out the deepest desires of our hearts.

In other words, suppose your vocation is “brother”; that is, suppose God’s plan for your life is that you are a brother to other people, to be a faithful, brotherly presence to others in the world. You will know the most peace in your life when you are actually acting as a brother to other people, and when you construct your life in such a way that you are leaving time for this deep calling and desire of your heart.

If you are fortunate, your paid employment and your vocation will overlap. If not, you have to be creative and find a way to live out your vocation and still keep your job! Still, you must live out your vocation if you want to know this sense of wholeness in your life. If you spend your life chasing other goals, wealth, self-fulfillment, or even some other form of Christian ministry, you will never know the same peace and integrity you will know when you are living as a brother.

The natural corollary to this is that we need to be aware of when we are feeling that sense of joy and wholeness. We need to be attentive to our spirits, to get to know that feeling of deep joy that comes when we are doing exactly that task for which God created us, and to begin to discern patterns in our lives. Is there a behavior that interrupts or hinders that sense? We must lay it aside. Is there a behavior that prompts or increases that deep wholeness? We must encourage and increase it. In so doing, we begin to learn more fully what it is to enter into God’s vocation for our lives.

Clash of the Titans LXXVII: Basketball

04/11/2008, 12:00 pm -- by | 1 Comment

In this corner, supporting basketball, is Mike!

And in this corner, opposing it, is Tom!

Those who dislike basketball need to meet my wife. I\’m 6\’3” and she\’s 5\’3”. I\’m stocky and she\’s, well, slight. (At least she was before she was pregnant, but that is not the point of this story nor is it particularly wise to say.)

When pressed to choose, most assume that I was the high school basketball player in our home. After all, I\’m a fair shooter and a middling rebounder. But I was not the high school varsity player ”” she was.

This is because basketball is the most egalitarian game one can play. A $10 basketball and a neighborhood court, YMCA, or high school gym, and you can play. No bats, no helmets, no pads.

There are no height requirements; there are advantages to being small and quick, and advantages to being a giant though slow afoot. There are advantages to being able to shoot 30 feet from the basket, and advantages to banging around under the hoop.

Basketball also can serve as a language when words will not do. I spent seven summers working as a camp counselor at a local YMCA in a small, economically depressed city near my home. Though my charges were near-universally of a different color from me, though we spoke differently and had different heroes and role models, basketball was a way I could communicate with them. Whether it was a standing challenge to beat me in H-O-R-S-E or running five-on-five with local high school kids, it was a way to fit in, a way for my ideas and being to be taken seriously, a way to break down barriers between us.

Perhaps basketball could even help President Bush\’s much-maligned foreign policy. A game of 21 with Kim Jong Il? Around the World with Kofi Annan? One-on-one with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ”” if we win, they have to take North Dakota; if they win, we have to take Manitoba?

The possibilities are endless ”” thanks to basketball.

A sporting event is a contest, a pitting of self against other, in which there can only be one champion. The players are combatants, playing through pain, injury, and weather to bring the battle to a close. But not so basketball. No, organized basketball is most often played indoors, protecting its mollycoddled players from the danger of sun, rain and wind. A polished wooden floor and sterile fluorescent lighting lend a bleak aura to the basketball landscape.

The Mayans in pre-European America had a similar sport. But their hoop was vertical, their court was outdoors and there was no use of the hands. Any child can toss a ball through a hoop with their opposable thumbs, but try doing so with a bounce off a hip. Combine that with the imposing physical nature of basketball’s ideological predecessor and you have a sport worth playing!

In contrast, modern basketball players are kept apart throughout the “struggle,” the least physical contact resulting in a foul. They trot up and down the court like so many braided-maned polo ponies, either bouncing the ball against the ground while they prance or limply slapping at it in an attempt to jar it from another’s control. The observed proper technique for these slaps leaves the wrist hanging as limply as the decorative nylon netting that hangs, streamer-like, from hoops at either end of the court.

These aforementioned hoops separate basketball from true sports of the people. Without the resources to find a tall pole with an attached hoop of metal, a young person cannot practice this loathsome pastime. But any enterprising youth can find a stick and a ball, improvise some bases, and have a rousing game of baseball. Likewise can be improvised a soccer pitch, with markers delineating the goals’ width and a spirit of good sportsmanship their height. The only firm requirement for these sports is space.

From the super-short super-tight shorts of the 70s to the ridiculously baggy ones popular today, basketball has long acknowledged its status as court jester in the kingdom of sport. Yes, basketball remains true to its roots: slapdash construction of a peach basket with a hole in it, dreamed up by some Canadian to give his students something to do when it was too wet to go outside and play a REAL sport.

{democracy:231}

Dateline: Houghton

03/31/2008, 12:00 am -- by | 1 Comment

I am here at my beloved alma mater for the first extended length of time since my graduation almost (gulp) nine years ago, working on the beginnings of my doctoral dissertation. I am in a strange building which resembles a large Country Inn & Suites except for the London Underground-style sign over the door that assures me this is actually the College Flats. Good to see the Anglophilia of recent years is intact.

Coming back to a place after so long brings memories back and makes me reflect on myself and my journey. Some random thoughts:

1. I’m different than I was then. For one thing, I had a wife and almost-two-year-old daughter in tow. They dropped me off here and continued on to Jill’s parents, where they’ll spend the week while I work here on my paper. Grace, my daughter, gleefully announced, “This is where Daddy lives now!” Yeah, I’ll miss you too, kid.

So much is different in my life than when I was here last. The people I love are different. Some are gone, like my Grandpa Lindley who taught at Houghton. Some are forgotten. Some are loved more intensely than I thought possible when I was here, like Jill and Grace. My outlook on life is different; I realized how much of my four years here were spent in crisis mode. Sometimes, I ran from the crisis, and sometimes I romanticized the crisis and wrote poetry about it, but I always felt like I was in crisis. I always wanted to prove myself as a student, as a popular guy on campus, as a spiritual leader, as a friend, as a boyfriend, as a comic. I had to be the best at everything, and it had to appear effortless.

As I ran tonight around campus, I was at times painfully aware that I am 30. Flecks of gray, the whole thing. But I was also relieved not to be 20 again. I was relieved that I’m out of that stage where I feel like I have to separate myself from the pack, that so much depends upon every little move I make. I’m relieved, frankly, that I have learned the spiritual value of inertia: that sometimes there is real value in simply staying put, in not doing anything but simply being and listening where you are. I’m relieved that I don’t feel like I have a future to create anymore. I have a future, but it is entirely in God’s hands. In my case, this was a lesson I could learn only from the passage of time; perhaps some 20-year-olds have it down, but I think my experience is not uncommon.

2. God is so much better than we ever realize. As I reflected further on my 20-year-old self, I realized how little I would trust that person if I met him today. And yet, when I think about the major life decisions that 20-year-old made, I’m stunned at how well they turned out. I married wisely. As a pastor, I know how many people lament their marriage choices. Blinded by hormones and inexperience, in the fishbowl that is Houghton life, it can be difficult to choose a spouse well. And yet no other decision besides my decision to follow Jesus has shaped me so profoundly for the good as my decision to marry Jill. She balances me, teaches me, learns from me, supports me and gives me someone to support. We have the tools to raise children well who will help in building God’s Kingdom, and we have complementary gifts to do our own Kingdom-building with our time here. A 20-year-old can only make such a decision well with God’s help, and He has been faithful and good.

Same with my decision to enter seminary. That decision was made about 2 in the morning as I worked overnights at a gas station between my junior and senior years in college. I had hoped to go to grad school for history, but came to a realization at a certain moment that I simply could not do that and needed to focus my energies on something related to the church and worship because those were my real God-given passions. How the heck does a 20-year-old know what those passions are? Perhaps some 20-year-olds do, but I didn’t. But God was faithful and good and opened up a door I never could have imagined, leading me into graduate work in Liturgical Studies, which I literally did not know existed when I decided to go to seminary. This work has given me life and God uses me in it to bring life to others; and my decision to do it was not of my own strength, but completely God’s.

3. I still don’t know very much. There are enough 20-year-olds who write for this website that I want to be careful to say that I’m not now endowed with perfect perspective on life that you don’t have. On the contrary. As I ran tonight, I realized that things will be different when I am 40, and that the little dreams I dream today will probably die and be replaced by better dreams than I can imagine. That’s simply the way of the God we know, who called Jeremiah to buy a field in the middle of a war, who called Noah to build a boat long before the flood started, who called Peter to eat dirty food and bring dirty people into the Kingdom. It is, in fact, the same God who chose to bring salvation into the world through the womb of another confused teenager, the young virgin Mary.

May God continue to do great things through unwitting people; may he continue to sow life in the world through the blind, faithful flailing of youth, and old age; may he use you in all your inadequacies, all your anxieties, all your flaws.

Bible Discussion — Luke 11

03/12/2008, 12:30 pm -- by | No Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next chapter of Luke, Luke 11.

Genesis: 1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18 | 19-22 | 23-26
27-29 | 30-32 | 33-36 | 37-39 | 40-43 | 44-46 | 47-50
Exodus: 1-4 | 5-8 | 9-11 | 12-14 | 15-18
19-22 | 23-26 | 27-30 | 31-34 | 35-40
Romans: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 (I)
Ch. 8 (II) | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Ch. 13 | Ch. 14 | Ch. 15-16
Luke: 1:1-38 | 1:39-2:40 | 2:41-3:38 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

 
INTRODUCTION:
Connie:
This is a great passage for the Spitzer scandal backdrop this week, because Jesus begins by emphasizing our need for daily dependence upon God — through prayer for our every need: physical, mental and spiritual. He goes on to show that although hypocrisy may be effective for a time to succeed in the natural world, it cannot bring lasting reward in the Kingdom of God. The outside must match the inside.

David:
Jesus teaches His disciples to pray in this chapter, to persevere in prayer, to understand where their authority comes from in prayer (binding the strongman), and to avoid the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees.

Mike:
A rollicking adventure of a chapter where Jesus teaches about prayer, unclean spirits, and then denounces some lawyers!

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Mike:
v. 52–Jesus’ charge that the lawyers “have taken away the key of knowledge.” He seems to accuse those who know the law the best of misinterpreting it, and thus barring themselves and others from the rich life the law could provide.

David:
In verse 42, Jesus compared the Pharisees to hidden graves that men walk over without noticing. This action would render them unclean, in their theology. I believe that unknowingly accepting hypocritical and false teaching does the same to us now.

Steve:
Luke says Jesus drove out a mute demon, and that when it left, the possessed man could speak, amazing the crowd. Interesting.

Josh:
In this passage the entire “woe” segment is sparked by a Pharisee who was taken aback that Jesus did not wash up before a meal. I wish I’d known that when I was younger and Mom was on me about washing up.

Chloe:
Abel is counted among the prophets.

Connie:
The scribes, Pharisees and men of law grew angry, despising and blaspheming the words of Jesus; then a woman spoke up and admired Him and the wisdom and power with which He spoke.

At first I dismissed His rebuke to her as one to those whose would later idolize Mary, but really it was much more than that. Jesus led the woman to a higher consideration. Though it’s a great privilege to hear the word of God, the ones who are truly blessed — that is, blessed of the Lord — are those who hear it, keep it in memory, and keep to it as their way and rule. Look at how many heard the same things she did that day, yet used them to scheme against Him.

 
BEST BAND NAME FROM THE PASSAGE:
Josh, Mike: Queen of the South
Chloe: Sign of Jonah
Steve: Lamplight
David: woeuntoyou
Connie: Best Seats in the Synagogue

Continued here!

A “Baptismal love letter”

03/10/2008, 12:00 pm -- by | 8 Comments

A priest whose blog I read writes “baptismal love letters” to the infants she baptizes and posts them on her blog. (FYI: her blog is here, and those of you who think I’m liberal should read this lady.)

Anyway, I’ll be doing a baptism Sunday for three of our young people, and here’s my letter to them, which will be featured in our bulletin on Sunday. Hope it is meaningful for you too.

Tyler, Melissa and Patrick,

Today you join a ragged band. As you are baptized, I am mindful that Christians have not always lived up to their baptismal vows. Too often, we have been indifferent to truth and to love; too often, we have pursued our own agendas instead of “following Christ in word and deed throughout our lives.”

And yet, here you are. Splendid, youthful, and each of you beautiful. Each of you with God’s Spirit living in you, refracting differently through each of your hearts and personalities. Each of you is a shining testimony: that despite our shortcomings as Christians, God’s Spirit is still active and touching hearts through His church today. Somehow, sometimes despite His people, God still works! Each of you is proof of this.

Today, as you are baptized, the old heads will sigh and cry, and you will be hugged and cheered and loved. But if we are careful, we might forget (and even you might forget) why we cry great tears of joy. We cry, not because you are so young and full of possibility (though you are).

We cry because despite it all, God is still good. We cheer you because you are the most recent evidence that God is still active.

My prayer for you is that you reflect this truth your whole life long. May it not be just for a day when you are young, but throughout your whole lives, may God’s purposes and love be seen in your life. As you grow up and grow old, may you be the hands and feet of Christ, bringing hope and joy to a dangerous world.

~ In Christ’s love, Pastor Mike

Best of Bweinh! — Romans 8 Discussion

03/5/2008, 12:00 pm -- by | No Comments

Read Part One here, and Part Two here!

Best of Mike — The Clamp

03/3/2008, 5:30 pm -- by | No Comments

Originally printed April 23, 2007.

Here is something I came across in my reading for school this week.

The clamp in which evangelical Christianity perpetually finds itself is that it simultaneously wants to define itself over against modern culture and yet be convincing or persuasive with respect to that culture.
~ Graham Hughes, Worship as Meaning

Hughes does not write as an evangelical Christian, but I think he lays a finger on the evangelical dilemma and perhaps the reason for so much evangelical ennui.

On the one hand, we reject much of modern culture. We decry it as hedonistic or relativistic or insufficiently grounded. Yet, on the other hand, we are the masters at imitating that culture and twisting it to other ends.

So we can go to our local Christian bookstore and find a chart that says, “If you like U2, you might like (insert flavor-of-the-week band here).” Or we can stress the ease with which a person becomes a Christian, saying, “You’re still the same person; it’s just, you know, you have Jesus now.” Or we can create thoroughly consumerist modern Christian churches which offer all the music and good coffee you could want, so long as you’re willing to accept the Gospel as part of the bundle.

I have to admit that I am both fascinated and repelled by our ability to use culture so well. It demonstrates a certain flexibility and resourcefulness that is commendable.

Yet I wonder if it does not cost us. In our desire to make the gospel so accessible, we often play up its similarity to modern culture. Yet it makes the next, vital step of Christian discipleship extremely difficult, perhaps impossible. That next step is being able to self-differentiate from modern culture, asking critical questions of it. How does the modern way of living bring Christlikeness, bring true life? How does the modern way of life bring death and distance between us and Christ? Sadly, we know that there are too few ways modern culture brings life, and too many where it brings death. Mature Christians have to be capable of detecting and avoiding that which is dangerous in the culture around us.

But because we are so wedded to the similarities between our churches and modern culture, all too often our churches (clergy included) are ill-equipped to help people navigate these waters.

Perhaps our church music and architecture and our very ways of evangelism and living should not seek to impress the world with how much like the world we are, but how very different we are.

Clash of the Titans LXX: Oprah

02/19/2008, 1:00 pm -- by | 3 Comments

In this corner, arguing on the side of Oprah, is Mike!

And in this corner, arguing against her power, is Josh!

It’s easy to hate on Oprah. Oprah is generally blamed, perhaps rightly, for perpetuating a sort of pseudo-religion, a stand-in for the Gospel, if you will. She promotes self-help books like The Secret that promote un-Christian (and downright wacky) ideas, and darn it, she’s just more successful and has more money than the rest of us.

Yet amid all the derision, we often forget the remarkable good Oprah has done. I’m not simply talking about her new South African school or other big donations, important though those are. I’m talking about a far greater accomplishment.

I’m talking about the fact that I have been in many gatherings of white women, my grandmother’s age, talking about a black woman seriously. Some of these women are quite liberal, while some put the fun in fundamentalist, but none of them grew up in a culture where African-American women were accorded respect. And yet, here they are, talking about her last show, reminiscing about great interviews in the past, forming an emotional bond with a black woman. Astonishing.

Is the emotional bond with Oprah perfect and praiseworthy? Probably not. It’s arguably not even real; you could argue white people love to have pseudo-relationships with African-Americans who remain safely behind television screens and stereo speakers. But you have to admit that it is something, given where we have been as a nation, that ladies of privilege–young and old–dab their tears and share their smiles with a woman of color born into hard Mississippi poverty and raised in a ghetto.

Oprah’s not a messiah; but let’s celebrate the significant inroads she has helped to make in the racial arena.

Let me start by saying that I’m not the type to begrudge anyone the opportunity or ability to become rich, famous, and influential. So I’m not here to hate on Oprah just because she’s probably the most powerful woman (person?) in the world.

I also think it’s great that she’s so philanthropic, even if that is part of her shtick. For what it’s worth, I’m sure it’s mostly genuine, even if it is undeniably crucial to her own future success.

But when it comes to the hero worship of the big O, I just don’t get it. Other than going on several semi-successful diets and giving away more cars than Bob Barker, what has she done that’s all that impressive? I mean, besides all that charity work. More to the point, what has she done for me?

I guess what really bothers me isn’t so much that everyone else takes her so seriously, but that she does as well. A couple years ago, she rubber-stamped James Frey’s memoir as a best seller by recommending it to her lemmings via her all powerful book club. When it later came out that Frey was a fraud, he was summoned back to the show for a good whuppin’. How dare he lie to Oprah… er, I mean, to the people? He threatened her credibility… um, I mean, betrayed millions!

In the end, I simply find the Oprah entity to be vapid, but probably no more so than everything else on TV. Considering what she’s up against in the daytime lineup, I suppose it’s no wonder she’s emerged as the people’s champion.

{democracy:215}

Holy Sadness

02/18/2008, 4:05 pm -- by | 3 Comments

“There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives…even in the most happy moments of our existence, we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is the fear of jealousy . . . In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance . . . in all forms of light, there is surrounding darkness.” ~ Nouwen

I read an article in Newsweek recently called “Happiness: Enough Already.” (Find it here.) Its point was that in modern times, we tend to view sadness as a condition to be corrected by therapy and/or medication. The author argued that while there of course are times when a person’s sadness overtakes them and should be managed by medicine, sometimes people are just sad naturally and it is a normal part of life.

I think Henri Nouwen, the great Catholic devotional writer, would agree. Perhaps he was just melancholy, but I think he’s on to something. Even in our brightest moments of joy, we can feel sad that the joy is fleeting, not here forever. Each embrace makes us realize all of life is not an embrace; each friendship makes us realize that there is a measure of distance between us and others. Essentially, each happiness reminds us that not all of life is happy.

Are these just the musings of a depressed individual? I don’t think so. I think this is someone who has a holy dissatisfaction with life. Each human joy brings with it a reminder that we do not yet know complete joy. All human intimacies, no matter how rare and delightful, remind us that we were created “naked and unashamed,” totally vulnerable with each other, until sin fractured our intimacy and left us alone. Each human joy reminds us that we have not yet arrived at the fullness of joy.

Nouwen’s ever-present sadness marks a man who is simply longing for his home. May such a holy sadness accompany us — not so we can mope around this world, but so that we can live all of life with the awareness that better things await.

Clash of the Titans LXV: Surveillance Cameras

01/29/2008, 12:00 pm -- by | 7 Comments

In this corner, supporting public surveillance cameras, is Connie!

And in this corner, opposing their use, is Mike!

June 2, 2007 — Kelsey Smith, 18, was abducted and strangled by Edwin Roy “Jack” Hall, outside a store where she had purchased a present for her boyfriend. Hall’s identity and apprehension was aided by the store’s use of security cameras. On his MySpace page, “Jack” called himself a “Sweet Troubled Soul,” interested in “eating small children and harming small animals.” Prosecutors are considering the death penalty.

February 1, 2004 — Carlie Jane Brucia, 11, was returning from a sleepover when she cut through a car wash. There she was led away by a man, never to be seen alive again. The camera at the car wash showed a man in a uniform shirt approaching Carlie, talking to her, and then leading her away. NASA assisted by enhancing the image, and the FBI helped find Brucia and her abductor. Police arrested Joseph P. Smith, who had been arrested at least 13 times in 11 years, and had been previously charged with kidnapping. Carlie’s family described her as a beautiful young girl who loved her cat named Charlie and enjoyed time with her friends.

February 12, 1993 — Jamie Bulger, 2, was kidnapped from a mall in Liverpool, England, by two 10-year-old boys, who then took him for a long walk which ended with them senselessly beating him to death and tying him to train tracks. The boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, had been stealing things all day at the mall. Caught on CCTV with James, the boys were convicted of his abduction and murder.

May 30, 2005 — Natalee Holloway, 18, disappeared while on a post-graduation senior trip in Aruba. She was last seen leaving a popular nightclub with three young men — Joran van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe, and Satish Kalpoe. All three men were arrested but released, and there was no security tape available of her on the island. Her family and friends hold out hope for a miracle, and her mother travels to churches, sharing her testimony of God’s strength and presence in her life, despite these devastating circumstances.

I could have listed numerous cases of missing kids where cameras could have provided some needed answers and valuable closure. I personally believe that when you are in public, you and your actions are public property.

The argument in favor of surveillance cameras is a touching one. How many crimes against innocents — especially children — could be prevented? Isn’t saving a life — just one life — worth any qualms we might have over privacy issues?

Of course, exactly the same argument could be raised for banning McDonald’s. Many more people die from the results of overeating than are murdered each year. Shouldn’t our government be concerned with this? Isn’t saving lives the point?

While people who feel this way (including my worthy adversary) are to be commended for their humanitarian spirit, I don’t understand the role of government in this way. Government doesn’t exist to save the lives of its citizens, it exists to preserve the rights of its citizens without which freedom is a hollow word.

The genius of the seminal documents of our nation is that they recognize the dangers of totalitarianism: give all the power to the state and watch the state misuse it. The right to privacy implied in the Constitution provides an important safeguard against this.

I may occasionally choose to give up my right to privacy. With a club card, I allow the grocery store to know what I purchase in return for discounts. I allow cookies on my computer in order to use internet services I enjoy.

I am willing to compromise my right to privacy in extraordinary circumstances, or simply for something special I enjoy. But I am unwilling to compromise my right to privacy simply to walk around town or use the subway.

Does that mean that occasionally people will violate the rights of others, even the sacred right to life? Yes, of course, and those people should be punished appropriately. But violating the basic rights of all to protect against a few predators is simply unacceptable.

{democracy:205}

Best of Bweinh! — Metric/Imperial Clash

01/15/2008, 11:30 am -- by | No Comments

Originally printed on April 17, 2007!

In this corner, supporting the metric system, is Tom!

And in this corner, supporting the imperial system, is Mike!

As a people, Americans have always paid our collective independence more than its share of lip service. We claim to be a land of freedom, say we have thrown off the bonds of tyranny that yoked our nation in her infancy, and present ourselves to the world as a paragon of liberty. Yet we persist in using a system of weights and measures based not on any semblance of sense, but on the whims and physical characteristics of the despotic few who governed the monarchies of antiquity.

The standard system ruled the roost of world business for centuries, growing comfortably fat off the toil of our brows and calculating machines. Wide rolls of strange numerical conversions began to hang from its jowls as it glutted itself at the table of commerce. Was this monster decimal? Octal? Dodecahedral? Who could afford to question? Time was better spent trying to determine the number of ounces in a hogshead, or inches in a furlong. But a new wind was about to blow.

Amid the tumult of the last time the French showed any collective semblance of bravery, a few daring souls decided to forge a universal system of measure. Rather than the length of a king’s thumb, or the volume of your average sheep bladder, they selected a length they would use for a base, a length of the people. The world was changing! The king was dead; he could no longer force the people to memorize numbers like 12, 16, 1160, or 5280! Instead, they counted their fingers, counted their toes, averaged the result and arrived at the number 10. That’s right, the same number upon which our entire system of numbers is based.

Not only can you convert between a nanometer and a kilometer just by moving a decimal place, you can even move between two and three dimensions without straining. Without measuring someone’s anatomy. Without consulting a council of bearded elders, table of ciphers or magician’s grimoire. When was the last time a child was able to proudly tell his teacher the number of cubic inches in a gallon? But any precocious tot can be instructed that a thousand independent little cubic centimeters together become a proud, powerful liter.

In a time of increasing foreign tension, should we really be raising the next generation to measure the world in a way foreign to the others who call it home? Is it worth enduring the confusion and inconsistency of the standard system, just so our grandchildren will measure their ice cream in the manner of our fathers? Just look into your heart, and count your toes.

I think you’ll find they hold the answer.

I pastor a church in a threatened part of the world. Chester County, Pennsylvania, just east of Lancaster, is a county of rolling hills and mushroom farms, and is a traditional home to horse trainers. You can still pass an idyllic Saturday in the southern part of the county watching the county as it used to be.

But the town where I pastor, Exton, has long been under threat. Every chain restaurant in the world, it seems, has moved in. I live about twenty minutes away, in Coatesville; a mere ten-minute drive from our church or home could take you to five McDonald’s, three Wendy’s, two Friendly’s, three Applebee’s, and countless other familiar restaurants that have conspired to all but destroy local cuisine.

We don’t need more themed chain restaurants beating the individuality out of us, and we sure don’t need a metric system forcing us all into a mold, even if it is a perfectly square, perfectly sensible, extremely user-friendly mold.

Do you really prefer the meter to the yard? We know how the meter came into being: it was a product of the “pure reason” so popular (and so stunningly bloody) in the French Revolution. Indeed, in 1799, the French stored away the originals of the meter and the other metric units, adorning the metric system with the motto, “For all men, for all time.”

On the contrary, we don’t know precisely where the yard comes from, only that its origin lies in charmed tradition. The girth of a person’s waist? The distance from Henry VIII’s nose to the tip of his outstretched thumb? No one knows for sure–all we know is that it’s a much better story than a bunch of progress-minded revolutionaries laying off the bloodshed long enough to standardize something random, then attempting to force the rest of the world to use it.

And they have tried to force the metric system. Don’t believe me? Ask the “Metric Martyrs,” a group of five English grocers who were fined for failing to measure their produce in metric units. Ask any Canadian you want. Their government went to the trouble of creating a logo to demonstrate their allegiance to metric’s new world order, pushing imperial users into underground quietness. Like Narnians, they must patiently await their chance to again enjoy their nation as it used to be.

So, go ahead, vote for the metric system. And while you’re homogenizing the world, would you also cast a ballot for eradicating local accents, closing the family-owned hardware store, and creating a list of state-approved songs for worship?

Thanks so much.

{democracy:23}

Advent Devotional — Tuesday, December 25

12/25/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Christmas Day

This is the revelation of God’s love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him.” (I John 4:9, in the Midday Reading in The Divine Hours)

Christmas Days come and go so fast. This year, I will be celebrating my 30th Christmas and I cannot tell you in detail about any single one of them. I only have snippets of memories here and there. I can remember being about 7 or 8 and arriving home from my grandparents’ house after midnight, sitting bleary-eyed before the lighted tree, trying to squeeze another few minutes of joy from the day. I can remember being 12 and starring in our church’s Christmas pageant, The Sixth-Grade Scrooge, and experiencing the rush of making an audience laugh for the first time. I can remember being 23 and visiting Jill’s parents, listening to her sister ring handbells at the local Methodist church.

Because Christmases are so fast and furious, it is vain to try to use them to communicate very much. We say that Christmas is about family. And about love. And about Jesus. And about giving. And about feasting. With all these Christmas ideals swirling about, it’s no wonder we don’t know any of them very deeply! We try to make the holiday do too much.

This year, I invite you into a deeper idea of what Christmas is. Because, first and foremost, Christmas is not about any of those things I have just mentioned. Most of all, Christmas is about God showing us how much He loves us. When we look into the manger, and we see the Baby lying there, we see God’s love more fully than we see it anywhere else. God gave us many good gifts before Jesus: water and food, summer and winter, the Law, the Prophets. And God has given us many good gifts since Jesus — our families, our homes, our churches, each other. Yet all those gifts point back to that one Greatest Gift, sending His Son to earth for our sake. His presence with us is the best evidence that God indeed loves us and longs to draw us to Him.

May you know that deep love of God this Christmas, and may the Baby of Bethlehem remind you always of how deeply God loves us.

Advent Devotional — Monday, December 24

12/24/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas Eve

Come now and look upon the works of the Lord, what awesome things he has done on earth.
‘Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.’
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
” (Psalm 46:9, 11-12, from the Vespers Psalm in the Christmas Eve reading in The Divine Hours)

Psalm 46 is a hymn to God’s strength. “We will not fear,” reads v. 2, “though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” At times, this language about God’s strength turns violent: “He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire,” reads v. 10.

We don’t often associate Christmas Eve with God’s strength. It is a cozy holiday; in the eyes of the world, it is a time to celebrate the universal beauty of mother and child. In the eyes of the church, it is a time to celebrate God’s humility, not divine strength.

Yet what if we were to recognize that Christmas Eve was in fact the greatest show of God’s strength the world has ever known? It was not earthquake, wind, and fire; it was not the raising up of one nation and the dashing of another; it was not the divine voice atop the mountain, frightening the people of Israel. Instead, it was the conscious laying aside of those things. In the coming of Jesus, God was strong enough not to rely on His “brute force,” His ability to cause the rise and fall of people and empires; instead, God was strong enough to come as a helpless Baby, convinced that what would conquer the world and steal away every human heart would not be thunder, but self-giving. Of all the works of the Lord, none was more awesome than this.

What if we learned to define strength in this way? We Christians sometimes believe the lies of the world, that the truly strong are those who can assert their will upon others. We tend to believe, like everyone else, that the strong are those who can punish with shock and awe, that the strong devastate the world. But what if we started to believe that the strong don’t always look strong? What if we believe that the true strength of God lay not in His ability to overwhelm us, but to give Himself completely away for us?

It is the weak who must constantly demonstrate to others how strong they are. It is the strong who are so sure of their strength that they don’t have to constantly put it on display. It is the strong who are comfortable giving themselves away, knowing that in God they will always have enough.

The divine strength of God, the strong arm of Israel, lays in a manger tonight and begs to be held and nursed and cuddled. Can we find it in our hearts to give ourselves away like our strong God?

Advent Devotional — Sunday, December 23

12/23/2007, 8:30 am -- by | 1 Comment

Sunday, December 23, 2007
Fourth Sunday in Advent
Purify my conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in me a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (The Prayer Appointed for the Week in The Divine Hours)

Do you ever wonder about the innkeeper who provided a stable where the baby Jesus could be born? I’m never sure if he’s one of the good guys because he provided some place for the baby Jesus when the inn was completely full, or one of the bad guys because he didn’t rustle up something a little better for this very pregnant little family. I suppose, as with most people, it’s a mixture of both. Perhaps he had kind intentions — he could have done more, but he could have done less too.

Whatever the case, the innkeeper provides a challenge for us today, because so many of us are like the innkeeper. We’re on the fence in our lives. We’re not ready to totally throw God out of our lives into the cold; but neither are we ready to fully embrace God, bringing Him into the inner sanctum, especially if that means disturbing some prestigious guests like pride and arrogance. And so we choose a compromise, a stable if you will: God is welcome, but only on the margins of our lives.

It is always tempting to offer Christ a stable. It means that we can view Him from a distance, from inside the inn, where it is warm and cozy, and not have to deal with the cold and hay and straw and animals of the manger. It means that we can enjoy the “Christmas story” without really having to make the reality of Christ’s birth a permanent, year-round part of our lives.

This prayer perfectly expresses the sentiment of Advent. As Christians, we should not want to find just a stable for Jesus, a place on the periphery of our lives where we can enjoy Jesus from a distance. Instead, we want to provide Christ with the mansion of our hearts. We do not want to keep Jesus on the outside, but fully invite Him in so that He can change us. And so we pray for purity; we pray that God, by His constant presence in our lives, will purify us so that Jesus will have a fitting home to come to. We pray that God will touch every corner of our hearts during this season and make them a place fitting for the King of Heaven to come and live.

Advent Devotional — Saturday, December 22

12/22/2007, 9:00 am -- by | No Comments

Saturday, December 22, 2007
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will;
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds;
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world;
Young men and maidens, old and young together;
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his Name only is exalted, his splendor is over earth and heaven.
He has raised up strength for his people and praise for all his loyal servants, the children of Israel, a people who are near him. Hallelujah!
” (Psalm 148:7-19, from the Midday Psalm in The Divine Hours)

When the Psalmist wrote these words, who knew that they would come to a culmination in a stable, on an ordinary summer night, in the village of Bethlehem?

Creation has always risen to praise its Creator. With the exception of humanity, gifted with the power of choice, creation cannot do otherwise. Birds flying north for the summer and south for the winter, rhythmic waves beating the shore, trees shading from tender pink to lush green to burnt orange to bare brown — all these things give the Creator praise, for they live their lives exactly as they were created. Of course, we can choose to live a life that does not give praise to God, which we do frequently and with disastrous effect. But there is nothing quite like a human being living the life God has created him or her to live; just as with the rest of creation, it gives silent testimony to the goodness of God’s design in our lives. Psalm 148 envisions just this scene: creation rising up to praise God, led by the capstone and culmination of creation, human beings created in His image.

It seemed an idea too cosmic to happen on earth; and yet here it is, happening. The Son of God lays in a manger bed and all around him is creation, bearing Him silent praise. The canticle O Magnum Mysterium says it well: “O great mystery and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the Son of God, lying in their manger!”

In their lowing and braying, and in the gentle breeze, creation continued on, exactly as it was intended. But humans, too, gave Him praise: Joseph and His mother Mary, the shepherds, and soon the wise men came, and of their free will, gave honor to the newborn King. The vision of Psalm 148 finally was realized as all creation came into God’s presence in a new way to give Him praise. Let us join our voices with all creation.

« Previous PageNext Page »