:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Family disagreements, self-acceptance, internet conflict, and alcoholism are all topics in this week’s link list. What can I say? I like to keep things light around here. The pot has officially been stirred.

Krista Dalton

WHY LGBT EQUALITY IS NOT A DOCTRINAL DISAGREEMENT

(I don’t know enough to speak to the two sides mentioned in this post, but I am very familiar with the tension between choosing what you believe to be the right religious conviction and the beliefs of family members. This is an important post to consider and talk about.)

“Throughout the course of Christian history, personhood issues have evolved as the Church became more enlightened. And I am thankful for this enlightenment because without it, I as a woman would still be property. I’m thankful I can walk into my church building and sit next to any person of any color and of any race that I want. But let us not fool ourselves into thinking we have reached the end of our responsibility to defend human dignity.

To be honest, I just don’t understand. How can a word typed on a page mean more than family relationships? How can it mean more than respecting someone else’s humanity?”

Heather Kopp for Rachel Held Evans

Ask a Recovering Alcoholic

(I have seen the damage that alcohol can inflict on relationships first hand, and it’s terrible for everyone involved. This wonderfully written interview is vitally important for everyone to read because you never know when you’ll be called on to help an alcoholic.)

“I wish more pastors didn’t still view addiction in primarily moral terms. Yes, addictive behaviors often begin with a moral failing like selfishness or overindulgence. But full-blown addiction involves physiological and psychological components that go beyond sin or even choice. Trying harder, reading the Bible more, or praying more are rarely the solution.

I don’t think the answer is for churches to get more involved in diagnoses or administering recovery. But I do think they could do more to bring awareness to the issue, help people feel safe enough to admit to addictions, and help them connect with professional help or recovery groups.”

Micha Boyett

On Writing and My Memoir

(So much truth from a talented writer.)

“It’s lonely work, the punching of keys and the mirror gazing of memoir writing. I hate myself in this book. I love myself. I’m annoyed by myself. I’m proud of myself. And then a little boy busts free from his babysitter and runs into my office begging to watch a show or in the background I hear a little one sobbing for his mama and I think: Is it worth it? Dredging all this up? Is it worth every hour I haven’t spent with these boys so I can pull out the thought that was so cloudy and noisy in my head and now looks like a butterfly on cement, sad but also kind of beautiful?

What I’m trying to say is that I have no choice. I have always been writing and my mind has always been writing me.”

Tamara Lunardo at A Deeper Story

When He Met Me At the Mailbox

(I may have a conversation like this with God every week… if not most days.)

“I burst. ‘But I’m not who I thought I was, who I wanted to be, and it’s all wrong, I’m all wrong, and you could never love me like this, and I can never be anything but this, and so you can never really love me– and there is no way we can ever be together.’

He closed the space. ‘There is nothing between us.’”

Caris Adel

Paralyzed by the Slash

(This puts into words the challenge of putting anything into words when everything we put into words will be endlessly challenged, second-guessed, and questioned. Sometimes we do our best based on what we know, and it can be unsettling to always find out what you’ve done wrong.)

“I saw someone on Twitter last week say that the internet had made them afraid to say anything to any woman on Mother’s Day, with all the awareness of how difficult the day can be for so many.

I kind of feel that way about everything right now.  Afraid to write or say or share anything, because someone, somewhere is going to disagree, and people will band together to say ‘you’re not doing it right.’”

Yesterday I plucked a piece of hay out of Ethan’s mouth. Julie once removed three blades of grass. This morning he definitely swallowed a piece of cardboard after gagging on it for a few seconds.

We are in the “Everything Goes in the Mouth Stage.”

Actually, that’s everything except for food—the one exception being his rice crackers.

Cheerios are fascinating specimens to be held up, admired, poked, and thrown. But they are certainly not for eating.

Broccoli is sometimes acceptable, but it has yet to become something that automatically goes in his mouth. It usually does, but you never know where it may end up. 

Banana is great for smearing on the tray.

Yogurt is for smearing in his face.

I’m astounded by how much a baby has to learn. I thought he would immediately grasp that a spoon full of food and a father with mouth gaping wide open would get the job done. THE FOOD IS HERE. OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND EAT IT.

It all seemed so simple to me.

Why are grass, hay, and cardboard eaten without a bit of fuss and real food is treated like poison?

It’s all a process of learning what to do. And even if he knows what to do, there’s no guarantee that he’ll do the right thing.

I experience this all of the time with writing. There have been plenty of days when I needed to focus on writing an article for a client and I give myself a “little break” that turns into a long break and by the time I’m reading my fourth article I realize that I’m almost out of time.

There have been times when I thought, “I’ll just peak at Facebook while I wait for this article to load.” Guess how that ends. Writing witty comments and promotional posts on Facebook does not count as writing!

There have been times when I needed to work my way through a belligerent chapter, but instead I let it kick me around and I ended up whining about “how challenging this chapter is!!!”

The rules are as simple as eating a bowl of yogurt.

Sit down. Put your hands on the keyboard. Engage your brain to start writing.

It sounds a lot like:

Sit down. Put your hands on the spoon. Engage the spoon with your teeth to start eating.

I don’t know why we both try to satisfy ourselves with the wrong things like cardboard and Facebook.

Some days we’re both just learning the basics.

I’ve spent a good deal of my time as a Christian fearing the Bible wasn’t true or that part of it could be proven inaccurate. I’ve devoted hours to studying it, fleshing out the background, and evaluating my philosophical and cultural presuppositions.

I took undergraduate and graduate classes in the Bible. I learned Greek and Hebrew. All of this has been in the service of reading the Bible accurately and applying it to my life.

I’ll just come out and say it: I love the Bible.

However, loving the Bible has not made me feel loved by God.

I know it’s an old quip to say, “The Bible won’t love you back,” but this goes a little bit beyond that. what if you actually can’t “know” that Jesus loves you even if “the Bible told you so”? What if words fall flat sometimes?

Our fear of somehow losing the purity of the Bible rats out our true priorities. We don’t fear the loss of God so much as we fear the loss of the book that tell us about him. The fact that we can’t even distinguish the two in our conversations drives home the extent of this problem.

Just learning about God’s love hasn’t been enough for me. In fact, the more time I spend learning and relearning about the love and forgiveness of God, the more uneasy I’ve become.

Shouldn’t the love of God stick at some point?

Can you imagine a marriage where a wife has to keep asking her husband, “Are you SURE you really love me? Can you show me that love letter again?”

We know that God loves us, but actually claiming it and resting in it for ourselves is another matter.

Finding the Love of God Means Confronting God

Who has time to pray in quiet?

Who can escape buzzing phones, computer screens, and televisions long enough to sit in silence before God?

Nap times are short for small kids, and sometimes the baby wakes up way too early. It’s never easy to find the time you need to meet with God, but finding God’s love means taking time to meet with God.

Sometimes “meeting” God feels more like a confrontation. There is the confrontation of being in God’s presence and overwhelmed with the holy that can unsettle us. In addition, God’s love is not neat and tidy.

When I’ve experienced the love of God, I’ve been led to some uncomfortable and unruly places where I’ve been doubled over by the presence of God as well as God’s peace and acceptance. I can’t exactly make a simple comparison between God’s love and something else I’ve experienced. It’s something bigger and more complicated than whatever I can piece together.

I’ve loved theology for so long that it’s hard to step into the experience and mystery of God’s presence. Experiencing God’s love is a completely different matter when compared to “knowing” about God’s love. Both are important, but merely knowing about God’s love without sitting in God’s presence will leave us in an empty, uncertain place.

Confronting God Means Facing Our Sins

The really sticky part about meeting with God daily has been facing my sins each day.

If my mind is racing or I’m battling stress and anxiety, there’s a good chance that I’m clinging to my own plans or trying to force God’s hand in a situation.

If I’m angry, there’s a good chance I have expectations of others that are unreasonable or I need to confess some of my own issues.

If I can’t forgive, then I have something truly vile festering within.

If I’m hesitant to pray, there’s a good chance I’m trying to hide something from God—not that I ever could hide my sins from him in the first place!

All of these things come up when I want to sit down and pray. If prayer is especially hard, then it’s likely that I may have something to confess.

When I first started out writing full time and I struggled to find the right combination of paying jobs to make ends meet, I had a very hard time praying. I blamed God. I blamed myself. I blamed other people. I panicked. I made new plans. I worked longer hours.

Nothing worked, and I didn’t see how I could make time to pray.

Consequently, I felt alone and abandoned by God.

What happened?

My most important revelation has been that I’m failing to seek God and the Kingdom of God first in these times. If seeking first the Kingdom of God also adds everything else that we need to our lives, then it’s possible that seeking first “all of these things” before God’s Kingdom will leave us feeling like we have nothing.

When I don’t feel the peace and assurance of God’s love, I can convince myself that I’m not worth God’s time.

Have You Experienced the Love of God?

It still feels like a cheap trick some days to force myself into believing that God loves me.

Belief in my “unlovableness” makes it hard to love others, let alone myself.

I can turn to the Bible and try to rest on the promises of God, but sometimes those aren’t enough. There is a disconnect sometimes between knowledge and experience. You can’t bridge it by learning more. You have to do something else with what you know.

Some days it takes a tremendous amount of courage and will power to simply say, “I believe you love me, Father. Thank you for your unconditional love.”

In the back of my mind there’s a voice saying, “What about your sins? What about all of the times you’ve ignored God? You really suck at loving God!”

There are promises in scripture that I lean on at times like this, but the way I lean on them is by waiting in silence, believing that God will accept me. There is an assurance we can receive from God that is beyond words or description.

There is a peace that passes understanding because it defies description.

How many of us have stopped short at what we know?

God’s Love Is Immeasurable

If this sounds like I’m suggesting we take a leap of sorts off a ledge, that sounds about right. We’re stepping into the unknown, the unmeasured, and the indescribable.

Experiencing the love and acceptance that comes from the presence of God is not easily mapped or quantified. There is no method to it beyond the simplicity of hopeful waiting.

There are no boundaries for the love of God because it is deeper, wider, and longer than anything we can fathom.

If we can give up on trying to learn our way into God’s love and accept that he personally has something for us that surpasses anything we can conceive in our minds, we just may become desperate enough to wait with quiet expectation.

He will come—not on your timetable or according to your expectations. But he will come nonetheless. And in that moment when God shows up, the love of God for you will be without question.

That is, at least until tomorrow comes, when you need to start all over again.

We have quite a diverse group of posts this week that range from personal stories to heavy theology.

Leigh Kramer for Micah Boyett

Conversation Is Like… (for the “One Good Phrase” series)

(As a fellow INFJ in a relatively new city, this post felt like Leigh has been reading my mind.)

“I’m trying to balance new friends here with the ones back home. I’m trying to figure out who really means it when people say, “we should get together” and don’t follow through. I’m reaching out and initiating because that’s what I do. I am a connector and I chase after potential good friends. But I really long for people who will initiate with me.

I didn’t know making friends would be this hard. And I’m a people person!

Building new relationships takes time, effort, and energy. For an introvert, even an extroverted introvert (INFJ, y’all), it means constantly putting myself out there but then balancing that with nights in to recharge.”

Nish Weiseth

A Personal Revival

“I made an idol out of the Church and she fell from her tall shelf in my heart and shattered. The problem wasn’t that she fell. She was never meant to be up there in the first place. The people who have cut me the deepest are the ones that claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and I just don’t get how it could be so. It turns out I confused wanting to be like Jesus with actually being Jesus. The people that hurt me were the former, but I treated them and held them as the latter.”

Suzannah Paul

The Space Between

“God knows I tried the joining route, lugging babies from group to group. I planned retreats and baked pastries for meetings and meals for new moms. I showed up and then some, hosting dinners and parties and play dates, but nothing really took. I am the failed joiner, heart breaking for lost, lonely boys playing video games in their basement and everyone longing for someone to reach back.”

Jenny Rae Armstrong

New Wave Complementarianism and the Revenge of the Straw Men

(My one caveat here is that I think there’s more of a spectrum of views, and so I’ve met some very nice complementarians who still use offensive language to describe me and my beliefs as an egalitarian. All the same, fringe rhetoric can be a huge problem if we mistake it for mainstream.)

“Most of the posts and comments I’ve read regarding New Wave Complementariansism make me want to cheer. I recognize my own heart, hurts, doubts, and hopes in these women’s words. But some (not all) of the negative pushback they’ve received was truly troubling, the sort of cringe-worthy comments that anyone unfamiliar with fundamentalism would hardly believe existed nowadays. We’re talking about ideas that strike at the heart of female personhood, that have women created less-fully in the image of God than men are.

Whoa, Nellie.

It was like the straw man showed up on their doorstep, live and in person, with his hair on fire.”

Kurt Willems

Corrective Strategies and Themes for Understanding the Book of Revelation

(I am extremely excited about this series. I’ve been working on my own book about Revelation called The Good News of Revelation, so I’m looking forward to reading Kurt’s perspective.)

“Had this book been primarily about some wild future (of course, with the exception of the renewal of creation in chapters 21-22), the call to “keep what is written in it” would not be so blunt here and throughout the book as a whole. To ‘keep’ Revelation is to walk faithfully with God on the narrow road of discipleship in the face of temptation and to thereby refuse compromise as the church becomes a visible alternative to the powers of the Empire.”

I begin my day with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea and a bowl of yogurt, granola, and fruit. I stand in the kitchen because I wake up early and don’t want to slump over the table. I open my Kindle to the day’s reading of the Divine Hours and begin to meditate.

Since having a baby, it is much harder to find solid chunks of time to just read the Bible. Routines can change with sleep patterns, naps, and teething. I read the Bible in chunks when I can, but the Divine Hours provide a stability and rhythm that I need in this season of parenthood where no two days are the same.

The Divine Hours I pray have been derived from the Liturgy of the Hours that many would consider a Catholic prayer guide, but which has roots in the early church.

The early Christians continued to pray at times similar to those used by the Jews. By the 5th Century, the Liturgy of the Hours took shape and became more and more widely used.

This isn’t something that got popular because of the internet.

This wasn’t something that took shape in one denomination.

This wasn’t something that a single theologian figured out.

This isn’t a new kid on the block kind of belief like sola scriptura.

These are readings of scripture that have been used for meditation and prayer for almost the entire existence of the church.

These readings guide me each day. They are a bedrock habit that call me away from email, writing ideas in my notebook, and blog posts for clients. Big book projects have to wait when I stand at the dish washer to pray through the hours.

As I meditate on scripture, my mind often wanders. Most mornings I pray through them twice. Sometimes I need a third pass to find my way.

Ethan is often sound asleep while I pray the hours. I like it that way. I like to think that I’m setting my mind and spirit in step with God. I’m opening myself to the leading of the Holy Spirit for the day and that I can perhaps be a little more patient and kind, setting a better example of what it looks like to be a father who follows Jesus.

These simple practices of meditating on scripture and praying in silence have been labeled “outside the bounds of evangelicalism” by a certain blogger because they are categorized as “mysticism.” I assume this blogger has made a simple but discrediting mistake of not reading enough church history. He doesn’t have to look far to see how these practices of prayer and meditation—“mysticism… Ooooooh”—have been nailed into the identity of the church over and over again.

They’ve been part of following Jesus far longer than the Reformation.

I began this day by praying the hours, and I’ll do the same tomorrow.

I frankly don’t care that this blogger thinks I’m a meditating heretic who will one day teach his sleeping son the disciplines of silence before God, Lectio Divina, and waiting on the Holy Spirit. I just hope that others won’t let his condemnation keep them from experiencing God.

Mystical encounters with God can be unsettling. They call us beyond the printed words of scripture into a real life experience with THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life. The way, the truth, and the life are a person—a person who is alive and well.

It is possible to study the scriptures diligently in search of life and to still miss out on the one who gives life.

It is a frightening thing indeed to gamble your authority, theology, and control by encountering a living God who doesn’t have to play by our rules. That encounter with God is where mysticism leads, and it’s rarely a tidy destination.

The scriptures are not the destination. They are the sign that we grasp for in the early morning light with drips of caffeine and squinting eyes. The sign is pointing us to an encounter with God that could wreck our theologies and undermine our leadership. It could even send us to the far corners of the world to declare what we have seen and what we have heard.

Like the first believers in the book of Acts, we are witnesses, and our testimony isn’t to what we have seen on the page. Our testimony is that the pages of a book have somehow come alive in us as we’ve encountered a crucified and Risen Lord who will one day return to restore his creation.

UPDATE: I forgot to credit Rachel Held Evans for bringing that blog post to my attention. If you want to learn a bit more about Christian mysticism today, check out Mystically Wired by Ken Wilson.

When I started out as a writer, I didn’t know much of anything about networking with fellow authors or how to ask them for help. I just stumbled along making one mistake after another. When you’re new, your only hope is finding an author who will either pity you or respond out of kindness.

One author who has probably pitied me but more often than not responded out of kindness to help me over the years has been Jason Boyett.

When I needed an endorsement for my one of my fake April fools day book releases, Jason responded right away.

When I needed an endorsement for my book Hazardous, Jason helped again without asking me if I had someone else to bug.

Jason has written a bunch of books, but you probably know him as the author of O Me of Little Faith. He also hosts a pop-culture podcast called 9 Thumbs where the 3 hosts make 3 recommendations.

He also wrote A Pocket Guide to the Bible. If I had to list two of Jason’s other super powers, besides being kind of rookie authors, they would be a sharp wit and an insatiable curiosity that fuels a drive to research. He puts both of them to great use in this enjoyable little book.

And if you like the Bible, today is your lucky day.

(You do like the Bible, right? Right???)

Jason has a garage full of his Pocket Guide to the Bible, and he’s selling them at a steep discount. He may even be able to finally park his car in the garage.

Order your copy today for only $4!

A bunch of churches have already ordered a box of 48 copies in order to give them out as gifts. I’ve seen Jason use a pile of them as a monitor stand. Really, the uses are endless.

It’s important that we support generous, hard-working writers. You can often find a writer who is generous or a writer who is hard-working, but it’s tough to find someone who does both so well as Jason.

Writers Who Review Books

And while we’re  talking about generous writers, I’d also like to call attention to pastor David Swanson. He reviewed my first book Coffeehouse Theology for Relevant Magazine when it released in 2008. That review is one of the most common conversation topics I have about that book: “I read about your book in Relevant.”

He recently interviewed me about my latest book Hazardous at his blog.

I’m grateful that David has taken the time to read my books and to write thoughtful reviews and interview questions. As a writer, there’s no better gift than to be taken seriously enough for someone to read and review your work.

I’m posting over at A Deeper Family today. Here’s the introduction:

My friend calls the local university near us a divorce factory. I wouldn’t have used that exact phrase since I know several happily married people there, but since we started my wife Julie’s journey through graduate school, we’ve seen plenty of failed marriages. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot.

I grew up with divorced parents, so it doesn’t take a lot for me to talk about divorce. We’ve been vigilant, carefully watching the ebbs and flows of our relationship as my wife perseveres through the demanding hours of her PhD work.

I’m not a marriage expert, but I think I can spot the contempt and lack of communication that marks a failing marriage.

The past nine months have been especially demanding. A few days after the birth of our first child last July, I landed two book deals that were due within two weeks of each other, while she started reading for her PhD exams.

Read the rest at A Deeper Family.

When you have two books (co-authored thankfully!) due within two weeks of each other, there’s a good chance you may burn out. That’s where I’m at this week. So the five links I usually post have been knocked down to three. Don’t worry, we’ll get this back to five next week. There’s lots of good stuff around on the interwebs.

Alise Wright

3 Obligations I Have as a Faith Blogger

(Lots of quotable bits, but this was my favorite part.)

“I need to remember that because someone’s voice is oppressed it does not mean that they are voiceless. As someone who cares about those who experience this persecution or attacks, it can be very easy for me to assume the mantel of “voice for the voiceless.”

Paul Miller

I’m Still Here

(After a year offline, Paul Miller says, “Meh.”)

“What I do know is that I can’t blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems. I have many of the same priorities I had before I left the internet: family, friends, work, learning. And I have no guarantee I’ll stick with them when I get back on the internet — I probably won’t, to be honest. But at least I’ll know that it’s not the internet’s fault. I’ll know who’s responsible, and who can fix it.”

Darren Prince for D. L. Mayfield

On Mutuality and Our Accidental Distances

(All of this. All… of… this…)

“So the story of my generosity in response to your need is only one angle; what about the part where we’re both just as likely to spend the money destructively? What about the part where you’ve welcomed me into your home just as much I’ve welcomed you into ours? How do I account for the unnumbered ways you’ve taught me more than I could ever imagine teaching you?”

What caught your eye this past week?

Did one of your blog posts get a particularly high number of page views?

Share them below!

It finally happened when I looked down at Ethan one day a few weeks ago. He hadn’t disappeared. He’d just moved. A little. His frustrated cries had given way to contentment when he finally seized the toy he’d been struggling to grasp.

Alas, his flailing and flopping had evolved into a tentative crawl. In the days that followed, he wiggled and squirmed across the floor. He grunted and panted. Inch by inch, he learned to crawl.

At this point, Ethan can wiggle his way just about anywhere in the house. His obsession with snacking on my Birkenstock sandals has flowered into a passion for the all-you-can-gnaw shoe rack buffet. As with the patrons of any all-you-can-eat establishment, he doesn’t appreciate being told to go somewhere else.

While Ethan has been speeding up his crawl, my writing projects really picked up as well. I had a book due on April 15th and then a large, urgent freelance project came in the day after that. The following week another large, urgent project arrived. On May 1st I had another book due.

The only things that saved me were my co-authors for each project and Ethan’s crawling.

I expected that a crawling baby would spell instant doom to my productivity around tight deadlines like this. He used to sit or lay on his blanket and play quietly for 20 minutes before needing a change of scenery. Oftentimes play time ended because he’d grown frustrated and sad.

To my surprise, crawling has actually kept Ethan occupied much longer since he can easily access all of his toys, visit the bunny cage, and wiggle his way under the dining room table. I have to be aware of his location if I’m working, but for now he’s quite happy with his new-found freedom.

I worry that sometimes I’m working too much while he’s playing. I’ve especially had that sense with these two book deadlines. As I look at my coming weeks, I can see a little breathing room in my schedule, and it’s wonderful to think I can spend more time on the floor with Ethan as he discovers the world around him.

I always knew that working part time while staying home with a baby would bring up compromises. It’s not easy some days. There’s a trade off I’ve made: I can make just enough to help us get by so I can be around all day—even if I’m not always playing with him.

Maybe this has been good for me and for Ethan. And when I say “good for me,” I mean for a parent with my kinds of issues. I’m the type who would always hover over him, dropping toys in his lap or pushing toys closer to him. I’d be tempted to make life easier for him.

As I’ve struggled to figure out a way to supplement our income with my writing work, Ethan has had the freedom he needs to struggle on the floor with crawling. That space is just what he needed. It’s a good thing I had a few book deadlines to keep myself out of his way.

I’m guest posting for J. R. Goudeau today for her Questions of Travel series. Here’s a little sample of my post about how we talk about “the poor.”

Who are “the poor”?

I don’t think I know who “the poor” really are. I’ve often spoken of them imprecisely and, most importantly, impersonally. “The poor” become this problem that is out there. I’ve spent most of my life living with that disconnect.

If I’m truly honest, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve even used “the poor” as a trump card of sorts in theology debates without necessarily committing to help anyone. I didn’t really know who “the poor” were, but I knew that Jesus helped them and it made me look a lot more virtuous when I upstaged another perspective like this:

“Jesus didn’t have time to fight over [evolution/politics/marriage amendments] because he cared for the poor.”

Have you ever heard that kind of reasoning before?

Read the rest of the post over at J.R.’s blog.