Category Archives: Poetry and Prayers

Poetry and Prayers, Worldview & Truth

Beauty … and terror

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Yesterday we took a brief excursion to the Terror Museum, a building in downtown Budapest that formerly housed the Secret Police during the occupying Nazis and the Communist years of Hungary’s history.  Story after story of betrayal, persecution, forced labor, deportation and execution led us through the gloomy halls of the edifice.  It is a truly shocking reminder of man’s capacity for cruelty and rebellion towards God.

Exiting the building into the tree-lined avenues of the city felt like a drowning man sucking in air.   Budapest is a city that could have been built around the theme of beauty:  Statues are strewn through parks and facades, trees and flowers are carefully set among the grand architecture of the Austrian-Hungarian empire while the beautiful Danube glides peacefully through the center.   It’s a dream-city of wonder and charm and contradiction.

How the same human race who created such a magical city can turn around and send its neighbors to death camps and torture chambers is a question that only the Biblical account of man can answer: Fashioned in majesty to reflect the glory of His Creator-King, mankind has fallen under a spell of darkness that perverts and corrupts everything he sees.  Man writes symphonies and sonnets.  And he gasses his neighbors in death camps.

The good news for Budapest is that her exiled King has returned.  Having entered our human darkness, He fought his way through the lies and deception and broke the evil spell of sin.   The kingdom He holds before us now would make the Austrian-Hungarian Empire look like a poor starving village.   Pray that the word will spread to the streets.

Poetry and Prayers

Superheroes

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Not long ago I saw the movie Hancock, about a reluctant and ill-mannered superhero played by Will Smith.   It got me to thinking about why we love superheroes.   What’s the deal with the masked crusaders that captures our imagination and fuels a multi-billion dollar business?

I believe it’s the Kingdom DNA that God has programmed into every man, woman, and child created in His image.   Intended from the beginning to be masters of the earth unmatched by only God Himself, we’ve never lost the ancient memory.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth… And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Gen. 1:26, 28)

Somewhere in our hear-of-hearts is the distant memory that we were intended to be thus, and when we see Superman saving the day our heart whispers “YES!  This is who I was created to be!”

Jesus, the God-man and prototype of all superheroes, after wresting the cosmos from the powers of darkness commissioned his disciples saying, “these signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18)

That’s who we are.  We are born into the bloodline of those “supermen” who defended the weak, rescued the dying, “conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, and put foreign armies to flight.” (Heb. 11:33-34) It’s our inheritance in the Epic tale God is still writing: the Story of the Kingdom.

With such ancient DNA in our being is it any wonder we thrill at the exploits of the superheroes?

Poetry and Prayers

Religion and relationship

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Sitting in my basement room at Mom’s house I’m not so inspired to dredge my heart for something “original.”  So I thought I’d pass on a couple of quotes from the book I’m reading, The End of Religion, by Bruxy Cavey.

“The problem with organized religion is not that it’s organized.  The problem with organized religion is that it is religious –  believing that its own set of rules, regulations, routines and rituals are the exclusive way to God.

If I am right , then the antidote to organized religion is not disorganized religion, but organized irreligion – a collective effort to use organization and structure to help encounter and experience the subversive spirituality of Jesus.  Cups can be useful to hold water as long as we remember it is the water that refreshes and not the cup.  Licking the cup leaves us unsatisfied.”

“Religion is the archrival of intimate spirituality… Religion, a tiresome system of manmade dos and don’ts, woulds and shoulds – impotent to change human lives, but tragically capable of devastating them – is what is left after a true love for God is drained away.  Religion is the shell that is left after the real thing has disappeared.”

-Doug Bannister

Poetry and Prayers, The Love of God

Being like my dad…

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Last Friday in class we reflected on Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son, and I saw a fresh flash of beauty that has escaped me for a lifetime.  (Don’t you love it when God does that!?)

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For the past thirty years I’ve been reading the Prodigal story and asking myself which character I am most like: the ungrateful, younger son of rebellion, or the iron-hearted older brother with an attitude,  (pictured standing at the right).  Sadly I invariably conclude that I have been and will likely continue to be a mixture of both.  But the point I saw on Friday is that we are to be like neither, but like the Father, filled with excruciating compassion and yearning for the return of the boy.  It’s a story about love, tenderness and mercy, and we are to be ever scanning the horizon with the Father in hopeful anticipation of prodigals.

But the real zinger came three days later when Vishal Mangalwadi explained to us: (this will be a loose quote)

“The Moral Majority in America became the moral minority because it had the spirit of the older son, and not the spirit of the Father.  Many of the America’s prodigals know they are squandering their father’s wealth, but they would rather live in a distant land than to return to the home of the older brother.”

I wanna be like my Father: broken-hearted and waiting at the door without an ounce of judgment.

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A few our our Justice DTS students helping me celebrate my birthday.

Poetry and Prayers

Turning 56

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Another year older, and I’m at peace with it. I never EVER imagined being fifty six, but since I’ve arrived at this august marker I’m resolute to embrace it with joy. “Dethroning the idol of youth” is what I’m thinking; Another year closer to Jesus, and hopefully another year more like him.

A little gang of fifteen students, (the oldest of which was less than half my age), took me to lunch down by the sea. For a birthday gift I asked each one to share some word of wisdom, and so while the Pacific breakers crashed behind us I was treated to a smorgasbord of international advice. Afterward we found a grassy spot and played volleyball, and I felt God smile at me. “This is especially for you” He said.

I love my life. Childhood dreams never stretched so far as to imagine the kingdom adventure I get to live every day. Challenges keep squeezing me forward, like this week’s fresh conviction to surrender my preference for comfort and prerogative of holding onto things. (In a years’ time I intend to own measurably fewer possessions than I own now).

After sunset I found a place on the seawall and watched – or more accurately – experienced the thunderous Pacific waves. They’re unusually massive this week due to stormy weather. It was a good day all the way around.

For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress. And as the evening twilight fades away the night is filled with stars invisible by day.

H. W. Longfellow

Poetry and Prayers, The Trinity

Where it all begins

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ford-maddox-brown_christ-washing-1848Every good thing finds its origin within the circle of the Trinity.  Honor, justice, love, joy and beauty with a thousand other gifts are simple reflections of the “circle dance” of life that pulses between Father, Son, and Spirit:

  • Honor reflects the way they relate to one another.
  • Love reflects the way they care for each other.
  • Order is a shadow of the way Father, Son and Spirit work together.
  • Joy pictures the delight they find in each another.

Beauty in all its forms is nothing more than the visible reflections of an invisible God. And lately I’ve been making a spiritual/mental exercise of tracing the “beautiful things” of life back to their source.

This past week I was pondering the stunning beauty of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet:  Were on earth did such a sublime idea originate?

“Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For what he does, the Son does likewise.”

Where else but in the circle of the Trinity?   It must have been that Jesus saw this staggering act of humility enacted within the affectionate fellowship of the Godhead: Father, Son and Spirit “washing” each others’ feet!  It makes me smile to think of such a God.

Learning to trace these good gifts of life back to their source has done wonders for my vision of God and sanctified my life in ways I never thought possible .

News & Stories, Poetry and Prayers

Following the questions…

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For the past two weeks I’ve been in South Carolina listening to the stories of old friends and new friends.   Something is afoot with people all over.  From Hungary to Hawaii, from the Mason-Dixon line to the Bible Belt people are restless and tired of the same ‘ol same ‘ol.  In this South Carolina community known for church hopping, friends are giving up even on the hope of finding the missing piece in the church across the way.  They’re asking (at last) questions that could lead us right into a twenty-first century Reformation: “Where are people experiencing grace?”  “Where are broken people sharing their lives in authentic community?”  “Where are weary ones resting in the love of the Father?”  “Where are weak and the poor being cared for?” “Where is the kingdom?”

Religion has set itself up for a fatal blow.  If these questions are left unchecked they’ll lead into something as new as tomorrow and as old as the dance between the Father, Son and Spirit:  If we’re not careful such dangerous questions might lead to the end of religion itself to a wide-open movement that follows Jesus into the radical, unorthodox ways of the kingdom.

Poetry and Prayers

An elephant in the church

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I’ve been casually reading David Kinnaman’s book Unchristian in my spare moments, and have been saddened by the research shown in the latest Barna Polls.  But first the words of Jesus for contrast:  “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

In 2007, when the Barna Research Group polled thousands of unchurched people asking them to choose from a list of positive and negative adjectives describing present day Christianity, the top three choices were:

  • Antihomosexual  (91%)
  • Judgmental  (87%)
  • Hypocritical – saying one thing and doing another.   (85%)”
  • The first “positive” impression, “has good values and principles” showed up at 76%

We obviously have an image problem, and we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.  While it’s true we should expect to be criticized by non-believers, this can’t be what Jesus had in mind.  I wonder if He must be weeping all over again?

Now that we know, (thanks to the good, insightful people at Barna), how do we go about repairing the damage?  Is it time for the church to repent to the world?  Should we invite a few of our unchurched neighbors to preach to us for a Sunday or two?  Maybe our congregations or elders could compose some well-worded apologies to be read on local radio, or published in the news?   Certainly we each need to begin by taking personal responsibility for our own actions and words.  But we can’t do nothing. Dysfunction in individuals, families, or churches, never heals itself by ignoring the problem.  We’ve got a stinking elephant parked at the front of God’s church, and it obviously can’t stay there.

Any ideas?

News & Stories, Poetry and Prayers

Natural therapy and the coming reign

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I’m pretty sure the high point of today will be a walk in the woods I just enjoyed with my friend, Ronnie.  Our conversation moved noticeably from preoccupation with the size of our problems to wonderment at the size of a tree.  Once again the beauty of God’s creation has been therapy to my heart.

I’m back in Maryland at my Mom’s house enjoying a few days of relaxation.  It’s been a daily challenge not to get all bogged down in the daily doses of politics being served up by the media.  As a Kingdom person I’m fascinated by all the ideas and dialogue, but I have to keep reminding myself that America, (wonderful as it is), is a fallen kingdom at best, temporal and steeped in materialism, pride, and the love of money.  It’s not the real kingdom that will smash all the others to smithereens.  (Daniel 2:35)  Any hope grounded in America itself rather than in the eternal reign of the King is both misplaced and empty.

Of course that’s not easy for me.  As someone who has grown up under the shade of American security, it’s quite alarming to see our foundations beginning to crack at breakneck speed.  And a leisurely walk through the woods can be a sweet reminder of the mustard seed kingdom that’s growing under our feet.