when death comes

Okay, the title sounds a bit morbid, but this really is one of my current favorites from the heart and pen of Mary Oliver (thank you for introducing me to her a few years back, Katie!)...it's a long epitaph, but I would love to make it mine. It spurs me to life...

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Oh the beauty of the limited mission

“Framing” our weekly devotions for next week on Mark 6:1-13 (which you probably want to read before continuing) and what we often call the “limited commission,” I was left with some extra thoughts bouncing around my head that I simply didn’t have enough room to explore on paper. And since I don’t get to preach on it, this blog of a tablet will have to give me the space…

Limited.

The very thing we call this commission is the first thing that strikes me. This was a limited mission. The most detailed report of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve as he sent them out on this “limited” mission (they only went to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel") definitely confirms the label "limited.” Needed items for this mission? Uh, nothing. In fact, you need to lose a few things. Yes, the Lord would tell me to keep my book bag at home. No bread (food, that is; that’s right, no snacks or granola bars or even dinner coupons). No bag (leave the briefcase and backpack at home, thank you). No cash (paper or plastic). And no extra clothes. Although Mark does say you can take your walking stick (Matthew and Luke disagree – no stick for you!).

Peterson in the Message catches the spirit of all this quite well (except for any of you Massage pooh-poohers out there, God love you) in his rendition of Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 10:

"Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.”

Yes this is indeed a limited mission.

I’ve often wondered why we have these detailed instructions left more or less for us three times in the New Testament if they really only applied to the Twelve on this occasion. Perhaps it’s just so we can be inspired by their faith...as we then turn around and do the opposite with all of our many bags, our cash reserve, our hotel reservations and car rentals in advance (after all, we must be practical! I mean, no bag, no cash, no clothes, and no stick [so say Matt and Luke]? Really now!). One thing’s for sure, don’t put Jesus in charge of our mission’s programs. I so would not have been a good disciple in that group...

But more seriously, perhaps these instructions were preserved for us very simply because, for the most part, disciples of Jesus throughout the ages would primarily be making these kinds of “mission trips.” The limited ones. Most would not be globe-trotting like the twelve eventually did. Most would be doing what the twelve did this time around – or even less. The limited commission of ministering in your own backyard – or better, your front yard, better still your living room, and then your neighborhood, your school, your workplace. And perhaps what the twelve did for their limited commission is what we need to do for ours.

Don’t load up, read up, and certainly don’t try to measure up. You don’t need lots of equipment. You are the equipment. So turn around, and behold your limited commission in that next face you meet.

It’s just that this is all so, so, well, limited. So counterculture to we sophiscated, driven Americans. There’s little that we won’t turn into a spectacle; if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing BIG. And here’s Jesus talking about a cup of cold water given in his name. The American Jesus would talk about providing water for the entire population of Palestine. Now that would be ministry. And indeed it would be. It’s just that, let’s be real here, for the most part through all of history, that’s the sort of massive thing that a king would do (okay, most kings take the water, but let’s not quibble here); peasants can give the cup of water in their hand. It’s limited. But it’s seen. It’s valued. And if all the peasants with a cup of water in their hands shared it, soon all the population of the land would be refreshed, wouldn’t it? Behold the power of operating well within our holy limitations. A growing mass of peasants so operating, empowered by the King…imagine the possibilities!

One of the suggestions I came across in my reading this morning paralleled this commission and its stripping them of all their stuff to what was required before entering the temple grounds. They didn’t just leave their weapons at the door of the temple, they left all their stuff before entering the holy precincts. I hadn’t heard that before, but I love the picture. The twelve drop all their stuff and empty their pockets before hitting the road just like they were entering the Holy Temple. The dusty streets of Palestine all become holy ground. No wonder even the demons were subject to them! What might God accomplish through us in our own streets if we walked around seeing that? With that air of faith and vision and expectation surrounding us… Sure we’d still have plenty of dust to wipe off our feet with a shrug. That’s the lesson of Jesus’ trip to Nazareth. But imagine the possibilities!

And I love that on this limited commission Jesus put no limits on what they could do kingdom-wise (heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons); it pretty much runs the whole gamut, doesn’t it? But he did limit the words. He told them to say, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Seven words in English. A mere five words in the Greek. Three words in Hebrew (Qarbah malkut shemayim!). Funny how my evangelical nature tends to reverse this; how I tend to limit the kingdom activities (or dismiss them altogether – whether miraculous because of my Cessationist inclinations, or whether benevolent because of my “that’s just social gospel antics taking care of the body but not the soul” routine) and then I multiply the words beyond limit. And so we talk, talk, talk (he wrote in his blog, blog, blog) to and at the world around us, and then have so very precious little time and energy for the doing.

Of course this involves balance. We bear the King’s mercy and his message. It’s both/and not either/or. It’s just perhaps, just maybe we should take to heart these detailed instructions to the twelve before we head out our door and try this balance on for size: Do, do, do, do, do and (wait for it) speak (three words will do). The message accompanies the mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy of Jesus, not vice versa; not a wee deed thrown in on occasion to try to make the message credible or edible (which rather than mercy borders on manipulation and shtick; remember, this is a challenge to engage in the limited commission, and Matthew and Luke tell us to leave our shtick behind). Let your deeds (mitzvot – keeping of the commands aka acts of lovingkindness) be many and your words few. Not a bad balance – it was His idea, after all. Perhaps I should actually try it.

Okay, one last thing in this joyful little rant of mine. Mark includes one detail unique to his account of their limited mission. He says “they anointed with oil many that were sick and they were healed.” The disciples probably didn’t pack lots of oil, but most households had it; in conformity with the rest of this stripped down and simple mission, they probably just used whatever was at hand wherever they happened to be. According to one source I read today, among its other properties and uses, olive oil was seen as something of a panacea, an all purpose medication for anyone with any malady. Maybe it would be like taking an aspirin in our culture. But God took that everyday item existing in everyone’s home and made it sacramental – made it kingdomish. The common and ordinary becomes a holy instrument in the hands of newbie disciples.

And that’s the limited commission…and the great commission too, for that matter. And whether small or great, how well, how freely, how kingdomly am I operating within my own holy limitations?

Restorationists

And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord is There. Ezekiel 48:35

Ezekiel was off-putting to me at first.

Perhaps it’s just because I so identified with the earthiness of Jeremiah; his miry pit and tears and running debate with God; with his (for me) effective redefining of what a real, successful ministry looks like (a bit counter to what is in vogue amongst us). I greatly identify with Jeremiah’s teary and earthy groanings!

But then comes Ezekiel with his spectacular, technicolor dazzling light show – so seemingly ethereal and detached and “out there.” It was actually hard for me to get into it on many levels this time around. But ultimately, the other-worldly notes he strikes complete this combined symphony he shares with Jeremiah beautifully. Both prophets do their share of “dream smashing,” and both hit the notes of future restoration; what I noticed this time around is how Jeremiah excels in the former, while Ezekiel soars in the latter. It was hard for me to make the transition at first (perhaps I’m not alone in that). I like the drama of smashing a pot – but these weird visions are another matter beginning with the first vision “of the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” that leaves many confused and others speculating about everything from LSD to UFOs.

And then the coup de grâce: the final vision occupying the last nine chapters of Ezekiel – a section through which in my own dullness I’ve generally had to repeatedly poke myself to remain alert while reading it. It feels like Exodus again. Not the dramatic chapters of plagues unleashed, of bondage broken, of a sea parted, of an oppressor routed, of a people freed. No, it’s the more tedious (to me) chapters of tabernacle description and construction. Back again in the land of many cubits.

Why all the minute details? Outer court and inner court, east gate and north gate and south gate, vestibule and priestly chambers, altars and sacrifices. Many get lost in all the details – details not nearly finding their fulfillment in the reality of the rebuilt temple of Zerubbabel – or even in the gloriously refurbished and refinished temple of Herod (finished practically days before its complete desolation). Old timers wept at the foundation of Zerubbabel’s rebuilt temple years after Ezekiel’s time; it just didn’t measure up to Solomon’s before or to the expectations of Ezekiel’s vision. Herod’s temple had the style and flash, but when it went up in flames, so did any thought that this was it either. So, many of us await another temple; we call it a millenial temple, and proceed to eschatological debates over timing and scenarios. And while I have no problem with a millenial temple or anything else that God wants to build during a future millenium or at any other time, I see something much bigger, much closer.

Ezekiel was measuring a dream. And like his first vision, I wonder if this one also is but “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” What was so vividly taken away from them and destroyed is now vividly re-envisioned with a glory that caused even Solomon’s to pale. It may not be the dreamscape we would envision and design as dream architects, but Ezekiel’s vision on his mountain is a marvelous extrapolation of Moses’ vision in Exodus – a vision which gave Moses a working plan to build something that would reflect the heavenly pattern he had seen upon his mountain.

In Ezekiel’s temple vision, I see more than a meticulous plan for a future temple that we are all waiting to happen some day (and in the meantime, we’ll happily fill the time with arguing over how and where and when, or even engage in political manouverings to make it happen). This temple vision is not merely an eschatological curiosity, an end time’s bone thrown to an impatient crowd lined up outside the door; it’s a call to overt action rather than merely passive viewing. It’s a vision that sustained a generation of returning Israelites as they returned home and built up the waste places of what was once home. The temple vision is a vision of restoration – a restoration of justice and righteousness and truth and beauty and holiness. A restoration begun by a generation of returning Israelites; a restoration continued now in our generation, our culture, our time in present day followers of the Prince who has come.

Another interesting intersection.

Friends had me sit down with them and watch the 2007 film Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. I would never have suspected an Ezekiel connection. But there it was. (I’m not going into detail about that film, you’ll just have to watch it if you wish to fully appreciate this paragraph). Mr. Magorium sees seemingly endless, colorful, kinetic, kaleidoscopic possibilties where others see only a plain block of wood. The “Mutant” blindly calculates numbers, while children’s eyes see magic unfolding right before them and they enter joyously into creative play. Replace Mr. Magorium and the children with us, magic with the kingdom of God, and the toystore with the big, wide world all around us, and you just might see Ezekiel’s ever deepening river flowing through your own neighborhood. Through ghetto streets and red light districts and war zones and famine & disease stricken lands. And “wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.” Ever deepening holiness, spreading everywhere. Through us. Unstoppable.

We’re not talking about escapism, wishful thinking or even wild-eyed imagination. We’re talking about Elisha eyes that instead of barren hills see the surrounding mountains filled with divine possibilities and then call those divine possibilities into being (prayer) through our own creative acts in engaging with our culture and our world (faith expressing itself by love). And even the dead-end Salt Sea becomes Galilee with such a diversity of teeming life that the Great Sea looks on with envy. The most arid and brown landscape has treelined streets whose branches are filled with life-giving fruit, and the very touch of their leaves brings healing. And there is always a tree. Always. Fully repenting of our first parent’s sin, we turn from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it withers away. Always do we reach for and share the fruit from the growing forest of the tree of life. It’s shade is never far, its fruit always near.

How sad to keep this temple vision bottled up as we debate its contents.

How sad to think of this primarily as a river other there, some day.

The river is here, and the forest is spreading.

I look out my window. I see the man or woman standing on the street corner holding a sign. I see today’s headlines. I see my own daughter in her wheelchair. Do I see the river? Will I move in its currents? Will it flow from within me to the pain that I encounter daily? Or does the bitterness of a Salt Sea seemingly rising to high tide still sting and blind my eyes?

dream smashing

I've been ruminating on Ezekiel for a month now as we approach the half-way mark in this 1189 journey; and so some thoughts on Ezekiel and Jeremiah, smashing dreams and visions of dramatic restoration...

After earthy Jeremiah, Ezekiel seems so other-worldly, so out of touch.

Jeremiah is among survivors in the land holding on to forlorn hope and dreams that their nation could still make it somehow – just one more political maneuver, just one more alliance; after all, God wouldn’t allow his own house to be torn down, would he? Ezekiel is among an early batch of exiled Israeli captives in Babylon, who are holding on to pipe dreams of their own of a last minute turn-around, the ultimate come-from-behind win that would soon have them all home. Both prophets essentially engage in a prophetic ministry of dream-smashing. False dreams, that is. And each goes about it in their own unique way.

Jeremiah takes the elders of the people to the potter’s house where he literally smashes an earthen pot beyond all hope of reassembly or restoration. God takes Ezekiel on something of a magic carpet ride as he is repeatedly caught up into celestial visions often involving a portable divine throne, a holy dais of sorts, borne about by four creatures with multiple faces, covered with eyes, possessing two sets of wings, and then there’s that whole “wheel within a wheel” thing – all of this being not the literal person and throne of God but “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” This is a glory that comes to him in captivity; a glory that is dynamic and mobile, not static; a glory that he witnesses departing, step by step, from the Jerusalem temple – explaining its ensuing destruction by the Babylonians. Some five centuries later,that glory would descend once again into a rebuilt temple (another false dream that would be smashed) in the ultimate likeness and appearance of God in the face of Jesus.

Dream smashing.

What an odd (and uncomfortable for most) way to begin the process of restoration in a society. For restoration is the ultimate work and vision of Jeremiah and Ezekiel – and of Christ followers today. It’s where this whole story of creation and fall and redemption and restoration is headed. Gabe Lyons in his book The Next Christians highlights this four beat story and observes that to a large degree Christianity has myopically focused on the middle two notes of “fall and redemption” as if the story were simply about being saved from sin and then ultimately getting out of here. But fall and redemption are only half the story – and his thesis is that the “next Christians” are those who embrace the whole story with all four glorious notes. Lyons describes Christians as “restorers” or restorationists who engage culture as opposed to isolationists who withdraw or collaborators who blend in. He says that such restorationists have a natural reflex to respond to brokenness “as if they see right through the moment and into a future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past. Then they work to create that future. Their unique vision enables them to face some of the greatest problems in our world without even a flinch.”

And here’s the thing. To see right through the moment into a future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past (let’s call this the kingdom of God) requires us to challenge and, yes, smash the false dreams of the present rather than coddling those dreams or showing people how they can incorporate God into those dreams (or worse, as the false prophets of Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s day, to claim those false dreams as being from God himself to begin with). Do I really need to spell out the implications of this for Christians today when we come to the “American Dream”?

To wake up and see what was and thus to engage our current scene not as mere critics but as partners, co-creators with God of what could be, of what is and will be (the kingdom of God!), means the dream we're currently buying into needs to collapse (yes, we need a major "kick"!). And so Jeremiah comes with a commission to “pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow,” and only then “to build and to plant.” He tried to awaken a slumbering generation with the sound of a breaking pot.

And while Jeremiah smashes the pot and is lifted out of the miry pit, Ezekiel in all of his antics is quite literally flying high as he tries to rouse an exiled generation with the dream that should have owned and shaped them from the beginning.

to be continued...

The Translators to the Reader

We stand on the brink of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version. Setting aside some time to read (more like wade into and through) the 11,000 some word preface to the original King James Version (“The Translators to the Reader”) was actually something of a special treat. And what a delicious irony that the first 1800 words or so are devoted to defending themselves in advance from public backlash against their work. The very translation currently championed by certain segments of our religious culture as the one true divine and inspired version of Holy Writ was itself received coldly – or conversely rather hotly as copies were burned in protest. (I can’t help but imagine the utter howling of protest, the burnings in effigies and of books if the current administration or any administration commissioned a translation of the Bible to be read in all the churches).

Reading the first section as these dedicated translators defend themselves and their monarch from the “cavillations” and “calumnies” that will most certainly follow upon their work, I could not help but find application of their words to any and all who would similarly dare to forge anything new in our religious culture. Of course, all too often our “zeal to promote the common good” doesn’t reflect a respect for current and previous efforts and practices, thus intensifying the consequent backlash. These translators extol the virtues of previous translations and went out of their way to commend their forbears, acclaiming of all who went before: “blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that break the ice, and giveth onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of souls.”

There are some great lessons here – and wonderful quotables. For instance, “Whosoever attempteth anything for the public, especially if it pertain to Religion, and to the opening and clearing of the word of God, the same setteth himself upon a stage to be gloated upon by every evil eye, yea, he casteth himself headlong upon pikes, to be gored by every sharp tongue.” Or how about this one (take note all ye blogging souls): “Being brought together to a parley face to face, we sooner compose our differences than by writings which are endless.”

I commend these portions of the opening section to you – take a few moments to sit at the feet of these translators and feast a bit on their words and wisdom; I think you’ll find it worth your while.

Zeal to promote the common good, whether it be by devising anything ourselves, or revising that which hath been laboured by others, deserveth certainly much respect and esteem, but yet findeth but cold entertainment in the world. It is welcomed with suspicion instead of love, and with emulation instead of thanks: and if there be any hole left for cavil to enter, (and cavil, if it do not find a hole, will make one) it is sure to be misconstrued, and in danger to be condemned. This will easily be granted by as many as know story, or have any experience. For, was there ever any thing projected, that savoured any way of newness or renewing, but the same endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition? A man would think that Civility, wholesome Laws, learning and eloquence, Synods, and Church-maintenance, (that we speak of no more things of this kind) should be as safe as a Sanctuary, and out of shot, as they say, that no man would lift up the heel, no, nor dog move his tongue against the motioners of them. For by the first (Civility), we are distinguished from brute beasts lead with sensuality; By the second (wholesome Laws), we are bridled and restrained from outrageous behaviour, and from doing of injuries, whether by fraud or by violence; By the third (learning & eloquence), we are enabled to inform and reform others, by the light and feeling that we have attained unto ourselves; Briefly, by the fourth (Synods) being brought together to a parley face to face, we sooner compose our differences than by writings which are endless; And lastly, that the Church be sufficiently provided for, is so agreeable to good reason and conscience, that those mothers are holden to be less cruel, that kill their children as soon as they are born, than those nursing fathers and mothers (wheresoever they be) that withdraw from them who hang upon their breasts (and upon whose breasts again themselves do hang to receive the Spiritual and sincere milk of the word) livelihood and support fit for their estates. Thus it is apparent, that these things which we speak of, are of most necessary use, and therefore, that none, either without absurdity can speak against them, or without note of wickedness can spurn against them…Thus not only as oft as we speak, as one saith, but also as oft as we do anything of note or consequence, we subject ourselves to everyone's censure, and happy is he that is least tossed upon tongues; for utterly to escape the snatch of them it is impossible….

This, and more to this purpose, His Majesty that now reigneth (and long, and long may he reign, and his offspring forever, Himself and children, and children's children always) knew full well, according to the singular wisdom given unto him by God, and the rare learning and experience that he hath attained unto; namely that whosoever attempteth anything for the public (especially if it pertain to Religion, and to the opening and clearing of the word of God) the same setteth himself upon a stage to be gloated upon by every evil eye, yea, he casteth himself headlong upon pikes, to be gored by every sharp tongue. For he that medleth with men's Religion in any part, medleth with their custom, nay, with their freehold; and though they find no content in that which they have, yet they cannot abide to hear of altering.

Adult Christianity

I came across some meditations by Richard Rohr that I've pieced together here. Interesting overlay on top of this year's Old Testament reading - and in light of many discussions and interactions over the past several years. I encourage you to read and sift and ponder and let Rohr haver with you a bit...of course, this will only really make sense to those in "the second half of their lives"... :)
In the first half of life you have to build your container which includes structure, family and law. These are the only things that control hormones and egos. If there is no limitation on the ego it self-destructs. We need sacred space, sacred time, and boundaries. If you don’t get structure when you are young, then later you become obsessed with law and rules.

When I was a chaplain at the Albuquerque jail there was a lot of talk about religion. Most people there had wasted the first half of life on alcohol, promiscuous sex and drugs. Their life had been chaos. They had an immense need for emotional purity and ego structure. Usually their religion was considered the only true religion, and they would invariably become very morally rigid about one or two select issues.

In the second half of life, you move toward the contents themselves, and your religion becomes a much broader sense of both morality and belonging. You have created your ego container and you just want to get to the real thing, the “new wine” as Jesus says, and not just the wineskins.

You must live and to some degree succeed in the tasks of the first half of life. You cannot fast-forward to the second half of life, spiritually speaking. Ego development is your first task, and then this “grain of wheat must die, or it remains just a grain of wheat” (John 12:24). You start by telling your children they are the center of the world and they are the best. God did this for the Jewish people in the Hebrew Scriptures, and this is what Jesus built on and passed on to us. It is not objectively true that we are “the best,” but it is psychologically and spiritually necessary to experience your “election” somehow. You need to have an ego to die to it and move beyond it. It is quite a paradox.

The final purpose of any idea of being special or chosen is to have the courage and the experience to communicate that “chosenness” to everyone else. It’s not just to advertise how saved and superior you are—which tends to be the common mistake.

Religion in a mature second half of life is not a moral matter or a superiority contest. It is a mystical matter where all questions of specialness have been answered at the deepest and most radical level—by God. So it is no longer my concern.

Paul says in Galatians 3 that the law will kill you, that the law leads to death, and only an experience of the Spirit has any saving power. Jesus says much the same with his mantra, “The law says, but I say" (Matthew 5:20-45). This has had little effect on the church recently.

Many Christians and many clergy are still trapped under the law and remain in the first half of life, spiritually speaking. This is not the gospel, but its most common counterfeit. You always fail if you’re under the criteria of the law because you can never attain something that you already have—namely your daughterhood and sonship in God. The law will send you on a wild goose chase that never ends and usually makes you more and more legalistic. Religion at this level becomes an eternal carrot on a stick held out in front of you. Unfortunately, we see this in many rigid and unhappy Christians. Their disappointment with God and themselves is visible to all but themselves, I am afraid. We can do so much better.

For most of the people I meet, the only way to get over the hump to the second half of life is some kind of suffering. Nothing else is strong enough to force us to let go of our ego structures and our old wineskins. We’re not ready at age twenty, although there are exceptions (like kids with cancer).

Some of our private salvation project has to fall apart and disappoint us. At that point the temptation is to go back and do the tasks of the first half of life with even greater diligence.

Organized Christianity in its Sunday form tends to encourage people to do the tasks of the first half of life over and over again (firming up the container instead of getting to the contents). The clergy do not question this because the container is what gives us a job. But it is also why many people become disillusioned by midlife, and also why we have the constant phenomenon of groups emerging on the side, like religious orders, hermits, and prayer and service groups where people actually try to live the message.

Up to the point where you fall in love with God, you haven’t yet met God. Religion is almost entirely cultural conformity and fear based. But “perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). If your motivation is still fear or shame based, then you are still building your container, which is necessary, but it does not demand any real love of God or neighbor yet.

Most of us begin with creating the skeleton, but it takes years and usually some suffering to find the meat, the muscle, and the real message of the Gospel. It is probably easiest to begin conservative, since liberals do not tend to respect the basic skeleton of faith or any limits to their seeming freedom.

In the second half of life you might look a little more like a liberal, but the real difference is that you have been overtaken by love and let go of fear. That is the meat, the muscle, and the message.

So how can we get to the second half of our own lives? We all know uptight men and women at 60 who still cannot let go and trust God or themselves. The secular person has no one to surrender to, so we can understand them being control freaks.

Christians supposedly do know a loving and trustworthy God, but they still do not entrust themselves to this God or others who are not just like them. Rigid and controlling people are almost always fear-based people. Only love thaws such coldness.

We each must fall into the hands of a living and loving God, sooner or later. It comes down to interior journeys of prayer, and leaps of faith where we learn to actively test and trust whether God is really with us, and whether God really cares. Only then can we deeply know that God is truly faithful and forgiving love—for us.

Many people are still living in a first-stage “beat up on myself” mode, as if this is supposed to please God. Unfortunately when you hate or fear yourself, you usually do the same to others—wives, husbands, family, coworkers, and neighbors.

In the second half of our spiritual lives, we do not need to prove, assert, or punish ourselves. We can freely and lovingly say “I am who I am.” Of course this grace has been granted after much shadowboxing and recognizing of one’s own failures. Afterwards you know that you are the same as everybody else, and we are all on this human journey together.

What you hate in other people is usually unrecognized and hated in yourself first. The only place to start therefore is with utter honesty and humility about yourself, but do not waste any time punishing yourself. That is the work of ego that always wants to judge everything up or down.

The soul compassionately sees everything in its wholeness and says “It is what it is.” From that radical acceptance comes real and deep change.

Adapted from Adult Christianity and How to Get There

a successful life

So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the LORD, to remain in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven— the men, the women, the children, the princesses, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah. And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the LORD. And they arrived at Tahpanhes. (Jeremiah 43:4-7 ESV)

What kind of an ending is that?

The hapless prophet is carried off against his wishes and counsel into another Egyptian bondage. More stern words of coming judgment, of the relentless pursuit of the Babylonian sword after a faithless and fickle people.

We would instinctively write a happier ending. We crave resolution. We demand the tying up of loose ends. But this is like a bad movie, the camera panning out as Jeremiah wails in Tahpanhes and then the screen darkens and the credits roll. Or wait, there are no credits. There’s not even a dramatic THE END. Jeremiah just fades, leaving us hanging, wondering...

I’ve always been struck by the seemingly utterly fruitless and unsuccessful nature of Jeremiah’s ministry.

He didn’t build anything.

He didn’t end up with a faithful band of followers around him. (Though he did have Baruch, for whom Jeremiah’s final word is “Do you seek great things? Seek them not.” What a timeless word for ministry!)

Flaccid kings never took his counsel.

Everyone judged his motives.

No one listened to him.

He was a prophet to the nations…but he never travelled anywhere…except to Egypt at the end of his life against his will.

The first edition of his book was cut up piece by piece and thrown into the fire.

No further copies were sought – though he made one anyway.

The stains from the muddy pit that was Jeremiah’s life ultimately left indelibly upon him the marks of a true saint; his muddied footprints the outline of a truly successful life.

Oh to one day be worthy of carrying those sandals…